Researchers Survey Bee Populations for Losses

More Ag News

Ag News

A survey conducted by the Agricultural Research Service and the Apiary Inspectors of America shows how well-managed colonies made it through the winter. Beekeepers reported a total loss of about 36.1-percent of their honey bee colonies. That’s up about 13.5-percent from the previous winter. Losses attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder appear to be about the same, with 36-percent of the operations reporting some lost colonies in which all adult bees disappeared. The combined survey checked on nearly 19-percent of the country's 2.44 million colonies.

According to Jeff Pettis, research leader at the ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, one issue complicating such research is that, so far, researchers only have samples taken after a CCD incident is reported. With just the one set of samples, especially since the adult bees have disappeared, researchers cannot look for specific changes in affected bee colonies preceding the collapse.

To deal with this, in February 2007, Pettis and cooperators from universities and states began taking samples about every six weeks from cooperating migratory beekeepers that move their colonies to provide pollination. Some of these apiaries did have a CCD incident in late 2007 or early 2008. The stored samples will hopefully give researchers an opportunity to see what changed, and more direction to find the cause or causes.