Honeybees are busy as, well, bees

PROVO — Don't panic.

That swarm of 15,000 to 20,000 bees hiding under the rafters outside your home or in your trees really is harmless.

If you leave them alone, that is.

Residents who spot the bees on their property can call the Utah State University agriculture extension office to come get them, said Adrian Hinton, an extension-service horticulturist.

Right now, Hinton said, the bees are "engorged with food" and generally won't sting.

Bees all over Utah are filling hives with eggs, and if they're not managed they could swarm, looking for a new home.

Large colonies are expected to divide in half and seek to establish new hives, he said.

Residents will have to call an exterminator to get rid of the bees if the swarms get inside a house, he said.

Honeybees usually don't survive long in the wild because of mites and diseases.

USU extension agents want to capture the bees so they can survive and continue pollinating fruit trees and garden plant, Hinton said.

Even in their hives, varroa mites — tiny, eight-legged spider cousins that can nibble honeybees and larvae to death — endanger bees.

"Honeybee managers are finding it's more expensive for them to buy new queens and packages of workers each year," said Dale Nielson, who rents his beehives to Utah

growers. "As a result, there are not enough colonies."

A shortage of honeybees means growers must pay more to rent them.

A swarm of honeybees that may have cost $40 to rent for a season several years ago can now cost $80 to $130, said Duane Cox of the Cox Honey Co. in Wellsville.

One concern: The mite's impact on California's almond crop. California produces 80 percent of the world's almonds, and beekeepers from other states, including Utah, travel there each year to rent beehives to California orchard keepers.

There are a variety of pesticides approved for killing the mites, but they have built up resistance to the pesticides over time.

Wayne Perry, who runs the Perry Honey Farm in Farmington, treats his 500 hives with apistan-coated strips, which kill mites but leave bees and honey unharmed.

"If you don't give them medication, they (the mites) will kill all of the bees," he said.

Perry is worried the mites will become resistant to the apistan. Next year, he plans to use one of several types of acid approved to treat mites.

Eventually, however, he could run out of effective treatments, and that's the fear that research entomologists like Rosalind James are working to alleviate.

"'There isn't anything available now that works really well," said James, who works at the USDA Logan Bee Lab at Utah State University.

Contributing: Associated Press

---

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com