One strategy is to try to fend off parasites like the varroa mite. We haven't seen a massive spike, but what our survey is showing is that we're not seeing the kind of improvement that we'd like to see.ĪUBREY: The bees that farmer Hail Bennett uses for pollination are brought in each spring by a commercial beekeeper, and these beekeepers are having to work harder to protect their bees. This is the second-highest death rate since 2010.ĪURELL: This is absolutely a concern. Dan Aurell of Auburn University is one of the researchers.ĭAN AURELL: Over the entire year, beekeepers lost 48.2% of their colonies.ĪUBREY: He says bees still face many challenges. And a new survey that tracks colony deaths shows many beekeepers are still struggling. You can't beat anything you get fresh off the plant.ĪUBREY: Given the vital service that bees provide, there's been alarm in recent years about the rate at which bee colonies have been dying off. And you want to have at least 15 seeds inside that blueberry fruit, and that tells you that that flower was adequately pollinated in the spring.īENNETT: I would take that one right there.īENNETT: I like that balance between the acidity and the sugar.īENNETT: This one was a good one right here.īENNETT: It tastes like great blueberries. For three weeks, they fly around his many acres of blueberries, moving millions of tiny grains of pollen within and between flowers in order to pollinate the fruit.īENNETT: It's pretty amazing how much work that the bees have to do, and I don't think a lot of people realize that an acre of blueberries has 2 million flowers, and each flower has to be visited six to eight times by a honeybee in order to be fully pollinated.ĪUBREY: He breaks open a berry to inspect the seeds.īENNETT: Probably 15 to 20 at least, so that tells me that that's a great blueberry. If it wasn't for bees, the blueberries would be much smaller, and they would not have any flavor.ĪUBREY: Each spring, he brings in loads of honeybees. You can tell by the size that they're going to have great flavor.ĪUBREY: He says honeybees are the key to a great-tasting berry.īENNETT: We depend on honeybees for our existence. HAIL BENNETT: I think we've got a good blueberry crop this year. It's peak season at his farm in Frankford, Del. NPR's Allison Aubrey visited a blueberry farm for a lesson in how it works.ĪLLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: If you're up for picking blueberries, Hail Bennett has loads of them.
Honeybees are crucial to our food supply, and across the country, beekeepers are having to work harder to keep crops pollinated.
It's one of the highest death rates on record. Across the U.S., beekeepers lost about half of their colonies last year.
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