Dozens of scientists and researchers met this week in Maryland to discuss the disappearance of millions of honeybees across the country.
This mysterious epidemic is called colony collapse disorder, and it's affecting the livelihoods of New Hampshire beekeepers.
If the crisis continues, beekeepers won't be the only people feeling the sting.
NHPR's Sheryl Rich-Kern has more.
Beehives, in Sandwich. (Courtesy Michael Cowart)
Bees.
Buzzing sound, fade under
Their presence often incites fear.
Some people simply want them to go away.
But be careful what you wish for.
Honeybees are dying off at an alarming rate.
And that’s not good news for anyone who needs to eat.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, three-quarters of the world’s fruit, vegetable and seed crops need pollinators like bees to reproduce.
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Rick Hardy is part owner of Brookdale Farm in Hollis.
Like many farmers, he leases hives from beekeepers to increase his production.
Some bird sounds
HardyCrop: You can generally expect an increase in yield by 10 or 20 percent by having more bees around. So, that’s a significant amount.
Last year, says Hardy, Brookdale Farm had millions of bees trucked in.
HardyShipping: The way they do it commercially, they might stack anywhere from eight to ten hives on a pallet. They unload the whole pallet with a boom, set it on the ground. If we want it in a different location, we move it with one of our forklifts.
He’s not certain how many will arrive this year.
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Allen Lindhal is president of the New Hampshire Beekeepers Association.
He manages some of the hives in his Merrimack backyard.
LindhalNoBees: There should be thousands of bees in here right now, but there is probably only 15 or 20 left. Still plenty of honey, but no evidence of live bees at all.
Lindhal opens another frame and shrugs.
LindhalOutWindow. Just another loss. I just think of all the money that has gone out the window.
The costs, Lindhal says, are in the thousands.
Alden Marshall is a beekeeper in Hudson.
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Marshall walks down a long, muddy path off Route 3A in Litchfield.
Bees, he explains, leave their homes when they’re ready to die.
MarshallExtent: Whatever happened, they felt stressed, they felt sick, something, off they go. Seeing no bees in the hives is nothing new. It’s the extent of the die-off that’s getting us.
Marshall suspects he knows why the bees are disappearing.
MarshalVirus: It’s been a known fact for some time now, that we have mites, the varroa mites, and we know they’re vectors for viruses.
Dennis vanEngelsdorp belongs to a research group at Penn State.
Researchers are trying to uncover clues to this affliction, which they call colony collapse disorder – or CCD.
vanEngelsdorp says mites and their associated viruses have caused bee colonies to collapse since the 80s.
But this time it's different.
DennisRelated: While it may be related to those mites, this loss, where some people are losing 90 percent of their hives in a matter of weeks, is unprecedented.
VanEngelsdorp says apiarists are considering other factors, such as pesticides or a lack of pollen flow from last year’s rainy season.
Tom Durkis, the New Hampshire state entomologist, says he relies on the brainwork of scientists like VanEngelsdorp.
Because New Hampshire, he says, doesn’t fund bee research.
Earlier this month, however, the state did hire an inspector to respond to beekeepers' problems.
DurkisVector: It’s going to be awhile before we can actually pinpoint. Until we get some kind of vectors to know what to look for.
And, Durkis cautions, not every missing swarm is a result of Colony Collapse Disorder.
Sometimes the inspector may find beekeeper error – and a remedy.
Meanwhile, beekeepers Marshall and Lindhal have returned from Georgia where they were able to buy more than eight million bees.
This Spring, they hope the new bees will stick around….at least long enough to do their job.
For NHPR News in Nashua, this is Sheryl Rich-Kern.
