DANIELSVILLE - Two years after bee colonies across the United States began disappearing mysteriously, scientists still don't know what has caused about a third of them to vanish - and why some places, like Northeast Georgia, have escaped the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder.
Beekeepers hope a $4.1 million grant will help scientists at the University of Georgia and other schools find out the answers to those questions.
The poorly understood disorder began to strike bee colonies in 24 states in late 2006. Colony Collapse Disorder also has been reported in other countries across the globe.
Even though the disorder has not affected beekeepers in this area, scientists say there's no guarantee North Georgia hives will remain immune in the future.
And farmers have warned that food prices could rise even higher if someone doesn't figure out how to stop the disorder. Honeybees pollinate about half the nation's food supply.
In the United States, beekeepers lost a third to a half of their hives in fall 2006 and winter 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The same thing happened again this past fall and winter - worker bees just disappear, often leaving behind a hive full of honey.
Dan Harris, owner of Booger Hill Bee Co. in Madison County, hasn't seen the disorder in Northeast Georgia, however.
"From what I've seen, things are pretty much normal," Harris said.
South Georgia beekeepers largely have escaped as well, according to Barry Hart, owner of 1,500-hive Hart Honey Farms in Fargo.
But Hart has seen what it's done to beekeepers he knows in other states.
Large commercial beekeeping operations haul around truckloads of bees, which they rent to growers for $150 a hive - sometimes more when it's pollinating season in the vast California almond orchards, the blueberry fields of Maine or the orange groves of Florida.
Some beekeepers and scientists think the stress of being hauled long distances repeatedly to pollinate one crop and then another may be a major factor in Colony Collapse Disorder.
Many of our most important food crops depend on honeybee pollination, Harris said - by some estimates, half the commercial bee hives in the United States are used in California in early spring to pollinate the almond orchards.
When hives are moved for such massive pollination efforts, the hives are kept close together in big yards, creating ideal conditions for disease transmission, and their unvarying diets also may make the bees' health more vulnerable than normal, beekeepers like Harris believe.
Pesticides also could be to blame...
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