Beekeeper’s Fair Booth Brings Focus To Colony Collapse

By Mac McLean
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: August 20, 2008

GRAY, Tenn. – A Sullivan County beekeeper at the Appalachian Fair is using a glass-encased hive display, jars of honey and beeswax plates to help save his livelihood one colony at a time.

John Snavely, president of the Washington County Beekeepers Association, said his organization has managed a beekeeping and honey production exhibit at the fair for the past 20 years.

But during the past two years the organization has been dealing with a series of problems that has devastated bee populations across the country.

“We’ve probably lost 30 percent [of our hives] this year,” Snavely said from his booth at the fair’s Farm and Home Building.

Local beekeepers aren’t the only ones suffering losses. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the country’s beekeepers started losing 30 to 90 percent of their hives in October 2006.

Snavely said scientists have been studying colony collapse disorder, but so far have no clues as to what causes it or how it can be avoided.

The disorder typically affects commercial beekeepers, who keep 50 to 75 hives and ship their bees across the country. But it has also affected local beekeepers who usually only keep two or three hives, he said.

Additionally, local beekeepers have been dealing with other diseases, changing weather and bee-attacking pests like the varroa mite. If the problems persist, Snavely said the country’s food supply could be seriously affected because bees pollinate about 75 percent of crops grown in the U.S.

He is pleased many people who stop by the bee booth have heard about the problems and want to help.

“Last year we [signed up] at least 30 new members,” Snavely said, adding the beekeeper group has doubled in size over the past two years.

Almost all the new members learned about the organization via the Appalachian Fair exhibit, he said, and many have gone on to raise bee colonies of their own.

It continued Tuesday as two prospective members signed a contact sheet after a beekeeping presentation. 

Snavely made such presentations to seven school groups who stopped by the exhibit on a special tour before the fair’s gates opened.

The school groups included Melody Faust’s third-grade class from Johnson City’s Southside Elementary School.

“This is great,” Faust said, adding a previous class she took on the tour talked about it for the entire school year. “[Students] remember stuff they get to see and do.”

Faust said the presentations at the fair’s history museum, livestock building and sheriff’s exhibit help round out her instruction each year.

The Appalachian Fair is open from 3 to 10 p.m. today through Friday and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Fair tickets cost $8 per person though discounts are available for senior citizens and children. For information, call (423) 477-1420.

| (276) 645-2518