Honeybee Colonies Under Attack Nationwide

A tiny pest is decimating honeybee colonies across the country, worrying beekeepers and farmers who depend on the insects to pollinate their crops. Experts think the mites may have arrived in the mid-1980s from Asia, where they coexisted with local honeybees. In their years in North America, the eight-legged pests have devastated wild bee colonies and radically altered beekeeping. Reproducing quickly and in a closed environment, the mites have developed a resistance to pesticides -- a trait they've been able to spread to their progeny faster than scientist have been able to develop new compounds to fight them off. Pollinating almond orchards is the immediate worry in California's agriculture industry, but the mites' devastation of the honeybee supply is causing concern across the country. Honeybees pollinate about one-third of the human diet and dozens of agricultural crops. California produces 80 percent of the world's almond supply. A $1 billion-a-year crop, the nuts have become the state's top agricultural export, ahead of wine and cotton. Because almonds are the first crop to flower, the state's growers are the first to suffer from the bee shortage. Bees are used to pollinate the orchards from mid-February to early March. While their work starts in California's 550,000 acres of almonds, the hives then move to apple orchards, cherry groves and melon patches before finishing in New England's cranberry bogs in early summer. That's why researchers, beekeepers and growers are scrambling for ways to save the honeybees. Jeff Andersen, who hauls honey bees from Minnesota to California, said he's never worked with so few bees. This year, he's lost about half his hives to mites. "It's a panic situation," he said.