Ag Alert April 28, 2021

Bees Continued from Page 3

en’t really gotten very far on solving why our mortality is this high,” even though “a ton of science” has gone into studying queens, bee genetics, andmites and oth- er potential culprits that could be harm- ing bees. At Bee Informed, Sallman said he con- siders mites “the biggest factor when it comes to bee health,” adding that if a colony becomes infested, “it’s almost a death sentence.” Queen selection, he said, may be one way to help beekeepers defend against mites. Some queen bees carry genes that allow them to counteract the var- roa mite, Sallmann said. They produce worker bees that can detect the para- sites, disrupt their breeding, clean the hive cells of disease and thereby control the mites without as much chemical treatment. Queen breeders screen for this trait, he said. “This is a big, new frontier with queen breeding,” Sallmann said. “That’s a real- ly promising new avenue for producing stronger bees.” Shas t a Count y queen producer Jackie Park-Burris said there’s been a push to test queens for this desirable trait “so that you can keep a cleaner bee,” adding that she uses hygienic screening to improve her stock and “to up our game.” Wi th compet i t ion for queens in the spring, she said more beekeepers now request queens in the fall, and more breeders try to accommodate. Park-Burris, Stayer and Landon said they al l produce queens in the fal l , but not in the large numbers as in the spring. Landon also sel ls package bees, consisting of 3 pounds of bees and a queen, as well as starter hive nucs— or nucleus colonies—that are small hives, which he said also drive demand for queens. He said sales of packages tend to be steadier with hobbyists and less so with commercial beekeepers, who look to packages when they experience heavier bee losses and hives too weak to split. (ChingLeeisanassistanteditorofAgAlert. Shemaybe contactedat clee@cfbf.com.)

Not only are beekeepers trying to establish and build large populations of bees in the spring to make honey crops in midsummer, Stayer said, but they want big, strong hives going into next year’s almond season, when de- mand for bees can push rental prices upwards of $200 per hive. “That’s the big challenge, is getting those colonies through the winter and into the orchards,” said Ben Sallmann, a honeybee health specialist for the Bee Informed Partnership, a national non- profit that works to better understand how to manage healthier bees. California beekeepers lost an esti- mated 42% of their colonies in the 2019- 20 season, similar to the 44% national average, according to an annual Bee Informed survey. Hi ghe r be e l o s s e s hav e c r e a t - ed more demand for queens, said Buzz Landon, who produces queen bees i n But t e Count y and s e r ves as president of the Cal ifornia State Beekeepers Association. Landon said queen breeders have re- sponded through the years by increasing

Shasta County queen bee producer Matt Stayer packages queens for shipment. His company, Stayer’s Quality Queens in Palo Cedro, ships about 1,000 queens a day this time of year.

production, with more people getting in the business, but they have not been able to satisfy peak demand that typically oc- curs in early April. With plenty of clear-sky days and temperatures reaching into the 70s this spring, he said “this has been a really good year” to produce queens, which

requi re such condi t ions to f ly and mate properly. “We try to hit this window of nice weather in April, May for queen produc- tion,” he said. “But it’s going to get dry here really quick, and a lot of the flowers are going to be done because of the dry- ness. It’s going to make the end of our season more difficult.” Finding locations for bees to for- age has become harder, Landon said, and with more beekeepers expand- ing production to try to meet growing demand, they’re “stepping on each other … l ike too many cows out in the pasture.” Beekeepers saidputting largenumbers of bees in too few places makes it easier to spread disease, viruses and pathogens among hives. “It’s a colossal experiment to put 2mil- lion hives of bees in one valley together, and then not expect that we’re all going to catch a cold,” TulareCounty beekeeper Steve Godlin said. With his bee losses as high as 40% the last few years, Godlin said he wants to give his hives “every bit of help.” To ensure colonies have young, vital andproductive queens, commercial bee- keepers typically replace asmany of their queens annually as they can afford to, he said. Despite the effort, he said, “we hav-

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16 Ag Alert April 28, 2021