LOGAN, UTAH — A Utah man is trying to use his recognition as this year’s national beekeeper of the year to focus attention on a major threat to the industry: colony collapse disorder.
Darren Cox of Cache County, who has 5,000 hives in Utah, California and Wyoming, received the award from the American Honey Producers Association this year.
He said he is seeking solutions to stop colony collapse disorder, in which honey bees disappear or die. The disorder wipes out thousands of colonies each year and threatens the pollination of fruits, nuts and vegetables. “This winter (we experienced) the largest die-off of bees ever in the history of the United States,” he told The Herald Journal of Logan.
Cox urges farmers to spray crops with pesticides at night instead of daytime when bees are more active. There are other things beekeepers can do to mitigate the problem, he added. “The first thing they can do is provide a habitat, make sure (there are) plenty of healthy, pollinator-friendly plants,” Cox said. “Then they can make sure to use the best management practices possible, and make sure mites are kept in threshold limits.”
