Buzz about bees is puzzling

Roy Cox, president of Cox Honey Farms, based in Shelley, Idaho, said while every beekeeper loses some bees over the winter, his losses this year haven't been excessive.

"We have not experienced any of it," Cox said. "In fact, we've never had bees in better shape."

Cox Honey Farms has about 6,000 colonies, which produce anywhere from 250 million to 500 million pounds of honey per year.

"I think it's a lot of hype, as far as how big a problem it is," Cox said. "I could be wrong. But by the same token I look at the problems, and even though maybe we've hit a hard time, we've never been more prepared. I wouldn't trade it for anything, because right now we're in a better position than I've seen in my lifetime."

Utah's bee business

Charles Sigler keeps bees as part of his small farm in Benjamin. This winter, Sigler said, he lost two-thirds of his 21 hives. Which was sad, but not unprecedented.

"If you look back about three or four years ago, 80 percent of U.S. bees died one winter," Sigler said. "And it wasn't a particularly bad winter. I lost a dozen colonies that year, and it was all I had. I was going to get out of beekeeping, thinking I was a rotten beekeeper. But when I heard that (the total U.S. losses), I thought, 'Well, maybe I'm not so bad."'

Sigler said that while he's not overly concerned about CCD, he does believe what's going on with the bees "has something to do with the environment, that's getting worse."

"They're just now starting to pay attention, and I don't know that we have much data," Sigler said. "But California is supplying all of our bees here this year, and however many I wanted I could get. They're more expensive this year, I did notice that. But there was no shortage of new packages. And as long as it's possible to go to my supplier and say I need a dozen, and I can get a dozen, to me it's not a big issue."

In fact, on his Benjamin farm, Sigler said honey is "just about the only thing making us any money." Last summer, Sigler processed 94 gallons of honey, which sold in three months.

In addition to reaping profits from the sale of honey, Downey said, many beekeepers are headed to California to rent their bees as pollinators in the state's almond fields, among the season's earliest crops.

"Especially now that we grow monocrops intensively, we do need pollinators," Downey said. "The way we grow agriculture is not amenable to natural pollination. These days, a lot of beekeepers don't even harvest honey. They drive around with their truckload of bees, renting pollinators."