Warm winter takes toll on bees

ANNAPOLIS - Maryland beekeepers have lost 45 percent of their bees since last year but the death toll is likely attributable to weather, not a national trend of mysterious die-offs, Maryland’s top bee inspector said yesterday.

An unusually warm November and December likely caused high fatalities in the state’s 8,200 bee colonies, said Jerry Fischer, state apiary inspector.

In a briefing to the state Agricultural Commission, Mr. Fischer said the warm early winter fooled bees into continuing reproduction called “brood bearing.” When temperatures dropped in January, Mr. Fischer said, the bees died.

“It’s been a very unusual year, this last year,” he said.

National worries have arisen about widespread die-offs of the insects, which are crucial to agriculture.

Honeybees pollinate many flowering crops, from broccoli to berries, but they have been dying off in at least 27 states for reasons scientists don’t understand. Federal agriculture officials have called the phenomenon colony collapse disorder (CCD) and the biggest threat to the nation’s food supply.

In Maryland, commercial colonies have been spared the disorder.

“I have found no colonies in the state of Maryland lost because of CCD,” Mr. Fischer said.

Susan Hays, whose family runs Hays Apiaries in Frederick County, said weather was her problem in the past year. The warm December days led to brooding, then when the weather turned colder, the bees would remain sitting on the broods instead of getting food even if the honey was just inches away.

“They just froze or starved to death,” said Miss Hays, who estimated she lost 10 percent to 15 percent of her 2,000 colonies last winter.

Her family sends honeybees as far as California, carried by refrigerated trucks, to pollinate almond crops. The apiary also ships bees to Mid-Atlantic fields to pollinate cucumbers, watermelons and apples.

The Hays family is one of only three large commercial beekeepers in Maryland. Most of the state’s 1,312 registered beekeepers are hobbyists with a colony or two in the back yard, and they are more susceptible to bad weather.

“I had about 80 percent losses over the winter,” said Carl Kahkonen, owner of 35 hives at South Mountain Apiaries in Boonsboro.

Mr. Kahkonen is a small-scale honey producer and sells to farmers markets.

Even though honey isn’t his main source of income, he said, more work needs to be done to research colony collapse disorder and honeybees.

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