Now it's Arizona

Beekeepers in Arizona say that colonies have been decimated by varroa:

Up to half of the honeybee colonies in Arizona have been killed, said Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman, research leader at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson.

Ken Orletsky, a beekeeper in Arizona since 1971 and former president of the Arizona Beekeepers Association, said the problem may be even more severe.

“We had 90,000 colonies in the 1970s,” Orletsky said. “I don't know if we could come up with 5,000 or maybe 10,000 now.”

... Arizona beekeepers are getting calls to take their bees to places like Colorado and Nebraska. The fear is that someday, there won't be enough bees.

In Arizona, bees are used to pollinate seed crops like onions, broccoli and lettuce, and some cotton for seed as well as citrus fruits like tangelos, grapefruit, lemons and limes.