Ohio beekeepers remain cautiously optimistic

About 85 percent of the bees survived the winter, but ‘it’s still early,’ an expert says.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Honeybees are plentiful in Ohio this year — good news for farmers who rely on the bees to pollinate more than 70 crops, including apples, pumpkins and strawberries.

About 85 percent of honeybees across the state survived the winter, experts say. Last year, a cold snap and a puzzling illness killed off about 1 billion, or 72 percent, of Ohio bees.

Farmers are cautiously optimistic for 2008.

“It’s still early,” said James Tew, a beekeeping specialist at Ohio State University’s agricultural research center in Wooster. “If it turns cold again and stays cold, the bees will eat all their honey and starve to death.”

But no one is saying the Colony Collapse Disorder, which leads bees to abandon their hives, is gone. Scientists are still struggling to understand what’s behind the problem.

The disease wiped out 400 of commercial beekeeper Joe Blair’s 2,000 hives this winter.

Blair, who owns White Star Farms in Fairfield County, lost 1,000 hives last year. He makes his living supplying bees to orchards and farms to pollinate crops.

“I can cover my pollination,” he said of his hives this year. “That’s all that counts.”

Bees are essential in development of the nation’s $14.6 billion in fruit and vegetable crops each year. In Ohio, the crops were worth hundreds of millions of dollars in 2006.

Colony collapse has killed billions of bees in 35 states. It helped kill 38 percent of the nation’s 2.4 million bee colonies last year, according to an Apiary Inspectors of America study published last year in the American Bee Journal.

The disorder has been active in California and Florida, where many commercial keepers house bees during winter months, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Pennsylvania State University entomologist.

John Grafton, apiary program supervisor for the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said there should be enough bees to pollinate crops this year.

Cheryl Wachsmuth, president of the Central Ohio Beekeepers Association, said she lost one of six hives over the winter. She’s hoping for higher temperatures in the coming weeks.

“As long as we’re good from here on out, we should be set,” she said.