Staff reductions at the Department of Agriculture may be cutting into the effort to figure out what’s killing honeybees.
Stretched by staff departures and a freeze on spending, the USDA asked researchers at Cornell University for help in determining what led to a big dropoff in managed bees last year, according to the university.
The department reached out to Scott McArt, an associate professor of entomology, to test whether pesticides might have played a role. McArt said the Cornell labs can turn around results of the expensive tests within about two months, or faster than might be expected of the USDA, although the federal agency is still spearheading the research.
The managed hives are critical to fruit and nut production, with as many as 70 percent of bees spending time in California to pollinate almonds and other crops, McArt said. He leads the university’s Dyce Lab for Honey Bee Studies.
