Beekeepers across the nation are feeling the sting of a baffling ailment that has killed tens of thousands of colonies.

Little is known about the emergence of this die-off, dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder, other than that it is threatening crops that rely on honeybees for pollination and that it is eating into beekeepers' pockets.

Ventura County has about 12 commercial beekeepers who have watched their colonies decline by 50 percent on average over the past year, said Alan Laird, Ventura County Deputy Agricultural Commissioner.

"It's a hardship for our local industry, and it's frustrating that there aren't solutions right now," Laird said. "There are a lot of questions without answers."

The problem could be a virus, fungus or residue, said Eric Mussen, extension apiculturist at UC Davis.

"We do have beekeepers having this collapse in California, but we really don't know what's causing this to happen," he said. "I think you have bees that are under a lot of stress."

California is among the 24 states that have experienced a decline in honeybees over the past year. It's not the first time beekeepers have suffered an unexplainable loss — there was a similar outbreak in 1975 — and it probably won't be the last.

Winter bees have a life expectancy of six months and are expected to last through winter, but many aren't making it anymore.

"Something happened, and we didn't get a good, strong batch of winter bees," Mussen said.

Pender's Honey Farm in Camarillo is one of many beekeeping businesses nationwide to report significant and unexplainable losses.

"Everyone's being hit," said Larry S. Pender, the second-generation beekeeper who owns Pender's Honey Farm.

"We expected to have 700 to 750 hives, and have about 500." Last season, his bee population dwindled 70 percent.

His father, Larry R. Pender, a beekeeper in Oak View, said he lost about 25 percent of his 900 colonies this winter, which has cut into his revenue.

"Thirty years ago, you could expect to lose 2 percent of your bees through natural mortality," Larry R. Pender said. "Today, that number is about 25 to 50 percent."

In addition, queen bees, which have easily lived up to five years in the past, aren't lasting much longer than a year, said the elder Pender, a beekeeping veteran.

Pender, like Mussen, attributes the loss to stresses placed on bees: pesticides, insufficient availability of pollen and nectar, moving bees from one location to another, losing a queen and little or no rainfall.

Larry R. Pender said he believes there are several causes for the collapse, such as viruses, stress levels, and food and nutrition.

"That's the dilemma," he said. "You don't have one thing to point to. It's a lot of things."

Red Bennett, owner of Bennett's Honey Farm in Fillmore, said he doesn't think the collapse is anything new.

"It seems like the same problem we've been having over the last 20 years with the mites in the county and across the United States," Bennett said.

Many beekeepers are able to control the mites, but many of them don't realize mites are a vector for various other pathogens, and those viruses don't necessarily go away after the mites have been dealt with, Bennett said.

"It's similar to a malaria mosquito," he said. "You can kill a malaria mosquito after he's affected you with malaria, but now you've got the malaria virus."

Cyclical collapses

A beekeeper of 28 years, Bennett said he's seen a collapse every two to three years. He used to have 2,000 hives, but he has scaled back pollination operations and boosted honey-packing and distribution. He ships 50,000 to 60,000 pounds of bottled honey every week.

Honey production in California dropped 34 percent last year, compared to the previous year, the California Farm Bureau reported Thursday. A combination of dry weather conditions and declining bee health drove down production.

At the wholesale level, honey runs about $1 per pound, down from a high of $1.50 per pound a few years ago. As the number of honeybees dwindle, Bennett expects the cost of honey to shoot back up.

An uptick in prices has already occurred in renting bees for almond pollination, jumping from about $85 to $150 per colony in the past few years, Bennett said.

Bennett's hives are still in great condition, said Susie Alvary, the honey farm's quality-control manager. The company's 400 colonies are now being used to pollinate almond groves in Bakersfield.

"The uprise of this bacteria has not affected our hives yet — not to say that it won't," Alvary said. "We just have to take extra measures."

That means keeping a close watch on the bees, looking for any dead bees that can harm the rest of the colony, and supplying supplemental feed to the bees during the winter when no nectar or pollen are normally available.

"We're able to keep our bees fairly healthy simply by taking care of them in the winter time," Bennett said. "Now, normally, you shouldn't have to do this. But under the circumstances, fat bees are healthy bees."

Each year, Bennett imports bees from Australia that are mite-free and virus-free to replace those he has lost.

It is not a sound business method for a large-scale commercial beekeeper with 2,000 hives, but it works for Bennett, who's been doing this for three years.

"They come in very healthy, and we've had very good luck with those bees," he said. "But within a year, they succumb to the same problems."

It's difficult to calculate the economic impact of the death toll, but numerous crops, especially almonds and avocados, rely on bee pollination and would suffer significantly if the condition worsened, Bennett said.

Almond crop may be affected

The Almond Board of California reports that there are enough bees to pollinate this year's almond crop statewide.

With 580,000 acres of almonds, California grows 100 percent of the almonds consumed in the United States, and 80 percent of the almonds consumed by the world, said Marsha Venable, communications coordinator for the California Almond Board. The state almond industry generated $1.6 billion in 2005.

In addition, many other local fruit crops require bee pollination, including cherries, apples, avocados, plums, melon, squash and alfalfa seed. Farmers are advised to stay in contact with beekeepers to make sure the hives they will need remain available.

A dying breed

During the WWII era, there were about 5 million honeybee colonies in the United States, Mussen said. Today, there are an estimated 2.4 million hives.

As the bees dwindle, so do the number of beekeepers. Pender said there were once dozens of commercial beekeepers in Ventura County.

"The collapse has been devastating to the beekeeping industry," said Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "We're going to lose the people in the business because they're not going to recover financially."

It's become nearly impossible to have a bee business when supporting a debt load, Bennett said.

"Back when I started the business in the '70s, a debt load was easy to support, because the price of honey and pollination was profitable," he said. "But right now it's not. So that means the only beekeepers left in the business are those that have no significant debt load. In other words, they own their business."

But Pender of Oak View said it's possible for beekeepers to earn a living wage in Ventura County, and he is optimistic the industry will bounce back in the next few years. Still, he worries about the next problem.

"I think within a few years, it'll come around to where we will have a handle on the situation," he said. "But unfortunately, we have a world agriculture economy ... the whole world has opened up to us. So it seems that each year in the agriculture community, we get a new pest."

On the Net:

Mid-Atlantic Apiculture: http://maarec.cas.psu.edu