Fungus taking heavy toll on bees

SEATTLE – Washington beekeepers say a devastating new pathogen is killing their bees in droves, just one year after many were relieved that they had avoided a mysterious colony collapse disorder that silenced hives all over the country.

Some beekeepers are helping to pay for a crash research program at Washington State University to figure out what is killing bees.

Yakima beekeeper Eric Olson, who runs the state’s largest commercial pollination business, said he has lost 80 percent of his hives in Western Washington – more than 4,000 in all – while his hives in central and Eastern Washington have survived.

The new pathogen, nosema ceranae, is a fungus that attacks the bee’s gut, making it impossible to process food. The bees eventually starve.

“It’s a major disaster in Western Washington. We are into a huge emergency situation,” Olson said. “I’m scared, and I don’t mind saying so.”

Other commercial pollinators with bees in Western Washington were just as hard hit.

For the researchers at WSU, “it’s a huge concern,” said Kim Patten, a WSU Extension specialist in Long Beach, Pacific County.

“We are just sort of at that tipping point,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much for the supply and demand for bee colonies to wreak havoc with agriculture in the Northwest.”

Eight of Washington’s 10 most valuable crops per acre in 2006 depend on bees for pollination. That includes apples, the state’s biggest crop, worth $1.4 billion annually.

In all, at least $1.8 billion worth of crops in Washington are nothing without bees.

Nationally, a third of the food supply depends on bees for pollination, from melons to cranberries to carrot seed, according to the National Research Council. Native pollinators, from wasps to bumblebees, are not present in the numbers needed for industrial agriculture – and those pollinators are also in decline.

“People are losing bees right and left, and this new nosema is the prime suspect. All indications are that this is a tremendous problem,” said Walter Sheppard, an entomologist at Washington State University.

Jerry Tate, president of the Washington State Beekeepers Association, pegs overall statewide losses at 35 percent to 50 percent. But he confirmed losses in Western Washington among commercial pollinators were 80 percent and higher.

“In the old days, if we lost 5 to 10 percent, we were whining and crying,” he said. “Now, with 30 percent losses, we think we’ve had a good year.”