No answers yet in honeybee hive die-offs

It's been more than a month since Clackamas County beekeepers began finding entire hives decimated, but the mystery remains unsolved.

"We don't have any definitive information at this point in time," said Paul Andersen, president of the Oregon State Beekeepers Association.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture collected dead bees from four locations to screen for pesticides, but has not yet tested them.

That's because the lab is backed up with other projects and a comprehensive pesticide screen is time consuming, ODA spokesman Bruce Pokarney said.

"It's a challenge because everybody's so darn busy right now," he said. "We hope to get the results within the next couple of weeks."

Oregon State University also collected dead bees, to test for pests and diseases.

Low levels of the varroa mite pest and the disease nosema, normal for this time of year, were found in some samples, said Ramesh Sagili, assistant professor, honey bees at Oregon State University's Horticulture Department.

"They were not at the level to result in colony mortality," Sagili said.

ODA officials say the bees appear to have starved, which could have been caused by pesticides or other factors.

Sandy beekeeper Dena Rash Guzman was the first to report a mass bee die-off. She found thousands of dead bees in and around two of eight hives on the 60-acre farm where she lives.

"I am very frustrated at not having any word on testing results from ODA," she said.

Guzman said she suspects pesticides, and plans to treat the inside of the hives with fire.

She will move two of them off the farm.

"They will perhaps do better in the city, which is a sad thing to consider," she said.

Meanwhile, honey stores look low in her surviving hives, she said.

Jon Beaty's hive has partially recovered.

"About half the bees survived so they're still hanging in there," Beaty said. "They're slowly making a comeback."

The case has drawn speculation locally and nationwide.

Susan Valentine-Cooper, of the Ohio State Beekeepers Association, suggested starvation due to chemical poisoning.

A similar incident in Kentucky happened with bees pollinating watermelons that had been sprayed with anti-fungals, she said.

"The working theory was that the anti-fungals on the crops weren't lethal to the adult bees but induced birth defects in the brood that paralyzed their guts so they starved to death with guts full of food," she said.

One reader even suspects "economic terrorism."

"Bees are vital to the economy and there has been no real response by the authorities," Donna McGee wrote. "It's weird and getting more suspicious each time."

Pollinators, including bees, bats and butterflies, are responsible for about a third of the food supply.

In Oregon, they pollinate about $500 million worth of crops per year.

tloew@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6779 or follow at Twitter.com/SJWatchdog