David Roy Park began finding empty hives where his bees should have been in the winter of 2006. In a matter of months, he went from 4,000 hives to 1,600.

“You go to the bee yard and open the hive and there's just no bees in it,” said Park, a fourth-generation beekeeper who runs Cold River Apiaries in Moore, in Frio County. “We started losing bees left and right for no reason that we could figure out; they just disappeared.”

Park's situation is not unique. Bee colonies surveyed across the country experienced an average 31 percent loss from September through March, and the total loss nationwide was 36 percent, according to a survey released this month that was commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America.

“That's an amazingly high number,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of AIA. “If you can imagine one-third of all the cows or chickens dying, that would raise a lot of eyebrows.”

South Texas has thousands of the 2.44 million colonies in the country, and the disappearance of hives has had a substantive economic impact.

The AIA survey was the second one the organization commissioned to gauge bee losses. It documented a trend some call Colony Collapse Disorder that has begun to alarm scientists, beekeepers and farmers across the country in recent years. Theories abound, but van-Engelsdorp believes the bulk of the loss is the result of parasitic mites that pass viruses from colony to colony.

Whatever the reason, bee population loss raises several serious concerns, he said. Bees are important to the food supply because they are primary pollinators for most agricultural crops. If it becomes too expensive to replace dead bees, van-Engelsdorp worries, too many commercial pollinators may get out of the business — and their specialized set of skills, combining beekeeping, carpentry and long-haul trucking, isn't easily replaced.

Park, the Moore beekeeper, said pesticides and drought are affecting the bees. Jack Fowler of Fowler Honey Farm in La Vernia agrees that chemicals, combined with the stress of constant movement from farm to farm, are killing the bees.

“It's the most devastating thing we ever went through,” said Park, whose operation produces honey but makes most of its profit as a crop pollinator, ranging from almonds in California to cantaloupes in West Texas and cucumbers in South Texas.

Park charges farmers around $150 per hive for pollination services, so losing 1,000 hives is a big deal, translating to a $150,000 loss in revenue at every farm he works each year.

Park's operation is back up to 3,000 since 2006 but still short of the 5,000 he considers normal. As soon as the honey season is over this summer, he'll be devoting all his resources to replace the missing bees. It's an expensive endeavor, he explained, costing about $50 per hive in labor and equipment — that includes $16 for a queen bee — not to mention lost revenue.

“It's probably cost me between a quarter of a million and three-quarters of a million dollars a year the past few years,” he said.

The disappearance of bees has also affected honey production, shooting prices up precisely because it's become harder to find.

“At present across the U.S., there is almost no honey to be had,” said Fowler, of Fowler Honey Farm in La Vernia, which sells raw honey to South Texas retailers. Fowler makes his own, but also buys honey from producers throughout South Texas.

Park said the disappearance of bees has varied geographically. His hives were hit in the winter of 2006, while his father, David Park of Devine, began to find empty hives at the end of 2007. The timing may be different, Park said, but the result is the same.

“I hope the researchers get this thing figured out because we really need some help,” Park said. “Everywhere I go now people ask how the bees are doing.”

News researcher Kevin Frazzini contributed to this report.

www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA051808.8B.BusinessBees.38986d3.html