Too many of beekeeper Tony Bachelder’s hives have gone silent. Once-thriving hives — averaging 70,000 honeybees each — sit idle and empty. Too often, he opens the boxes and finds nothing more than a few dead bees at the bottom. Last summer, the veteran Buckfield beekeeper had 700 healthy hives. This spring, the number has fallen to 500. And many of the remaining hives have only a fraction of their former populations.
His honey production is down, and his work with farmers has fallen. Bachelder recently turned down a $30,000 contract because he no longer had enough bees. Statewide, populations of bees have been hit harder than they have in more than a decade, said state apiarist Anthony Jadczak. The bee expert has received calls from New Brunswick, upstate New York and Vermont (which he calls “bee heaven”) for help with die-offs of bees. In Maine, the population has dropped by at least 20 percent, figured Erin MacGregor-Forbes, president of the Maine Beekeepers Association. Jadczak, who travels the state inspecting hives and teaching beekeeping, knows of an experienced beekeeper in eastern Maine who lost about 225 of his 250 hives. Jadczak himself lost about 60 percent of his 50 hives. MacGregor-Forbes, who also teaches beekeeping, figures she lost about 25 percent of hers and knows some hobbyists who were wiped out completely.“I know a lot of beekeepers who lost 50 percent, 70 percent or 100 percent of their colonies,” she said. She worries that some professionals may leave the business altogether. “At the same time we’re losing bees, we’re losing beekeepers,” she said. “You’d be crazy to go into that as a living.”
Source: Bangor Daily News, May 8, 2011
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/08/outdoors/maine%E2%80%99s-bee-…
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