Published: May 28, 2007 07:06 am      

Keeper ponders bee deaths

Disagrees with national malady trend

GRAYSON — Last year was one of the worst years for bees ever, said Dearl Kitchen, who lives in Grayson and keeps 12 hives on his 15 acres.

His bees died by the thousands during the winter, and production is down.

But he doesn’t attribute the loss to the mysterious malady that’s afflicting beekeepers across the nation.

A nationwide investigation has found a plague of unknown origin that’s been dubbed “colony collapse disorder.”

Beekeepers from 27 states have reported losses of 30 to 90 percent of their bees.

The bees appear to be abandoning their hives, and no one knows why.

Kitchen doesn’t think his losses are connected and attributes them to weather, a one-two punch of too much rain and too much heat.

Kitchen, 78, has kept bees for much of his life. His hives are in his back yard, in the midst of a small grove of Magnus and Korean Giant pear trees.

He keeps the grounds landscaped for the bees, mowing high to preserve the Dutch clover and other plants bees love.

Kitchen’s theory is that last year, heavy rain washed nectar from the blooms, depriving the bees of their food supply.

And the enervating heat of summer left the bees in a torpid state. Bees are like people in at least one respect, he said. “When it’s hot, they stay in the hive and don’t work.”

So the bees didn’t make enough honey for the winter. As a result they starved to death, he said.

His losses differ from those reported nationally in that the bees died in the hive.

In hives afflicted by the colony collapse disorder, the bees mostly abandon the hives.

The syndrome doesn’t seem to have hit Kentucky, said Mike Baldridge, who is president of the Eastern Kentucky Beekeepers Association.

Colony collapses appear to strike large commercial beekeepers, particularly migratory beekeepers, he said.

Migratory beekeepers move around the country and set up hundreds or even thousands of hives in major agricultural regions such as Florida and California.

Their business isn’t honey; it’s a pollination service. The honey is an incidental byproduct, Baldridge said.

Baldridge also sees weather as a factor in Kentucky losses. A dry spring, for instance, means fewer flowers and thus less nectar.

Also, the unseasonably warm weather in March followed by the week-long freeze killed more bees, he said.

A 20 to 25 percent loss over winter is considered normal in Kentucky; last winter losses averaged 40 to 45 percent, he said.

The stakes are high enough that commercial beekeepers will do whatever it takes to solve the problem, Baldridge said.

What’s at stake is much of the nation’s agriculture because bees pollinate most fruit trees and many other crops.

Kitchen isn’t overly worried. He doesn’t have a theory, other than there may be some new disease afoot. But bees have always died, albeit not in such numbers or so mysteriously, he said.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.