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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (148708)	3/13/2015 4:06:39 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

comment from one of my climate hangouts... Blooms coming too early for Rogue Valley’s bees Bees not yet up to full strength to pollinate early blossoms Mar. 13, 2015 …Wild bee populations die back in winter, and many newly hatched bees aren’t old enough yet to fly about gathering nectar and pollen, said Sarah Red-Laird, founder and executive director of the Ashland-based Bee Girl organization, which promotes honeybee conservation and educates beekeepers…. Meanwhile, many commercial beekeepers have their insects in California pollinating almond trees, which usually bloom early. Southern Oregon orchardists, including pear growers, are scrambling for commercially kept bees to pollinate their trees, which flowered early during recent unseasonably warm temperatures. “Pear growers are calling. We’ll get our bees back as quickly as we can to pears,” said John Jacob, a commercial beekeeper and founder of Old Sol Apiaries, based in the town of Rogue River. He went down to California on Thursday to retrieve his bees from almond orchards and bring them back for Rogue Valley orchards…. There is typically a two-week gap between the California almond bloom and the Rogue Valley pear bloom. This year, there is no break between the blooms, he said…. In the Rogue Valley, wild bees and hobby beekeepers keep non-commercial bee hive numbers high enough to allow for some orchard pollination, he said. This year, Red-Laird said, many wild bees are out of sync with the blooms. “This spring came so early and bees haven’t had time to catch up with the bloom with the populations they have. The bloom seemed to pop in days and it takes three weeks for bees to go from egg to adult bee.”… Rick Hilton, an entomologist and researcher based at the Oregon State University Extension Office in Central Point, said the pear tree bloom came two and a half weeks ahead of normal, which is a significant amount. This year marks one of the earliest blooms ever, if not the earliest, he said. The days are not only warm, but many nights have been warmer than normal…. “In the 25 years we’ve been keeping records, this is our lowest amount of chilling by a considerable amount,” he said. “The three lowest years of chilling occurred in the last four years, with this year being the lowest.”… Mild winters can also allow insect pests such as the Oriental fruit moth to survive better, emerge earlier and show increased activity. Caterpillars of the moth damage shoots and fruit, he said. “We caught our first Oriental fruit moth of the season on Monday,” Hilton said. “That’s the earliest I’ve ever seen.”