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| Crucial For Carrots |
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| Oregon Honeybee hives are used to pollinate fruit and vegetable crops from California to Washington |
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 | | Photo By Susan Matheny | | Dr. Michael Burgett, on left, COSI fieldman Bruce Martens and bee coordinator Mont Rouse check the condition of hives pollinating an Agency Plains carrot field. |
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By Susan Matheny
Lids were popped off hives swarming with honeybees so visitors could peer in during a recent tour of hives being used by Central Oregon Seeds Inc. to pollinate carrot seed fields.
Wearing protective face nets and jackets, the group included retired professors of entomology Michael Burgett of OSU, and his colleague Dr. Dewey Caron of Delaware, who were touring hives in Madras, Hermiston and Yakima.
Burgett said, "Were just two old bee professors, and I'm showing the one from the East Coast how bees work in the West."
For 20 years, as Oregon State University's bee specialist, Burgett advised Central Oregon growers on hive and pollination issues, but OSU no longer funds a full-time bee specialist.
Also checking hives were Rich Pollard and his 10-year-old son Ryan, from Springfield. Pollard works for BeJo, a Dutch vegetable seed company which buys carrot seed from COSI, and also is a beekeeper himself.
Conducting the tour were COSI partner-manager Mike Weber, field representative Bruce Martens, and the company's bee coordinator Mont Rouse.
Weber said COSI uses around 9,200 hives to pollinate its fields, and Central Oregon as a whole uses over 10,000 hives.
"The vast majority of hives are from Oregon beekeepers in the Willamette Valley, Hood River and Hermiston, with a few suppliers from California and Washington," Weber said.
Burgett said, "There's no place in the Northwest that is bigger in the commercial bee business than Oregon."
He said Oregon beekeepers follow a pollination circuit, which starts by sending 75,000 colonies of bees to California almond orchards. The beehives then are trucked to pollinate pears in Medford, cherries in Columbia River orchards, apples and pears in Yakima, then vegetable seed crops in Central Oregon.
 | | Photo By Susan Matheny | | Beekeeper Rich Pollard, left, and 10-year-old son Ryan, with Dr. Burgett, Bruce Martens and Mont Rouse on right, checking hives. |
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Honeybees are crucial for the pollination of many crops, and the threat of the mysterious "colony collapse" phenomenon, which has caused the die-off of numerous honeybee colonies across the nation, has made Oregon growers uneasy.
Two temporary honeybee research positions at OSU were recently funded with a $215,000 grant from Oregon's Joint Legislative Emergency Board to collect data on the health of Oregon hives.
During the Jefferson County tour, Weber said, "We were pleased with the status of the hives. No diseases were seen locally, but you can't really tell visually. You need analytical tests."
"With part of the money from the grant, they will start surveying (Oregon hive) health by taking a random sample of beekeepers' hives," he said.
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