Bee supply good news for farmers

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Bee supply good news for farmers
March 22, 2008 09:58 EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Bees are plentiful in Ohio this year, but whether they stay that way depends on the weather.

James Tew, a beekeeping specialist at Ohio State University's research center in Wooster, says that if gets cold again and stays that way bees could eat all their honey and then starve.

Experts estimate that as many as 85 percent of the honey bees across the state survived the winter -- up from last year when beekeepers found that a cold snap and a mysterious disease had killed off 72 percent of Ohio bees -- about 1 billion of them.

The higher numbers so far this year are good news for Ohio farmers who rely on bees to pollinate more than 70 crops, including apples, strawberries and pumpkins.
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