What a decline in honeybees could mean for Palisade

What a decline in honeybees could mean for Palisade

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) - Washington State University released a study stating commercial honeybee colonies are projected to decline between 60% and 70% in 2025.

“Locally we are not worried, nationally, bees are very important to a lot of the crops we grow,” said Bruce Talbott, farm manager of Talbott’s in Palisade, “when they’re most needed, we have plenty of bees. If we needed them in the middle of February, we couldn’t get bees.”

If Palisade began to see a decline in honeybees, the effects could be extremely damaging. “Palisade is an agriculture town and so honeybees are critical for a lot of our crops, they result in the pollination of literally billion dollars’ worth of crops a year,” said Dan Bean, director of Palisade Insectary.

Palisades’ most popular crop, peaches are self-pollinating, so a decline in honeybees will not affect them, but that’s not the case for other crops grown locally. “If we didn’t have honeybees we would have very poor cherry set, plum set and apple and pear set,” said Talbott.

Palisade is hosting their 16th annual honeybee festival Friday April 12.

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