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W.Va. imports 6 million bees to replenish colonies

May 21, 2008 @ 02:50 PM

The Associated Press

Herald-Dispatch.com

West Virginia has imported 6 million honeybees from Georgia and 100 tons of corn syrup to replenish bee colonies devastated by drought and harsh winter weather.


Agriculture Commissioner Gus R. Douglass says a prolonged drought and late freeze last year sent commercial bee numbers plummeting by about 30 percent. That’s two to three times the rate of population loss of typical winters.


Marion County beekeeper Tom Kees, a former president of the West Virginia Beekeepers Association, said several beekeepers lost half of their bees last year, some more than that.


Douglass said a $200,000 allocation from state lawmakers has helped to boost the bee population by about 20 percent.


It also enables the state’s roughly 960 beekeepers to use their 16,000 colonies for lucrative out-of-state crop pollination.


The state also plans to use some of the money to provide medication to protect colonies from disease and pests, he said.


Mites and disease devastated the bee population in the late 1980s. By 1995, the state had fewer than 200 beekeepers with fewer than 2,000 colonies.


In a typical year, about 500,000 pounds of honey are produced in West Virginia. In the past 10 years, the state’s biggest crop was 590,000 pounds in 1996, the smallest crop was 234,000 in 1999.


Douglass says commercial bees are critical to the pollination of many trees in the state, including the tulip poplar and black cherry.


Kees said the replacement bees will be “a big help.”


“I think we’re the envy of beekeepers across the country,” he said.