PORTLAND — The fifth mass bee death in Portland in the past several days has state investigators on the hunt for a cause.
The Oregonian reports that dead and dying bumblebees littered the sidewalk near the Market Street entrance to downtown Portland’s Pettygrove Park. The carcasses were so thick, Lewis & Clark College law student Corinne Fletcher said, “you had to step carefully to not step on any bees.”
Lab results from the first four die-offs are expected next week, said Mike Odenthal, lead pesticide investigator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
He said the department is trying to find out whether humans did something to the bees with a pesticide or pollutant or whether there’s something strange going on with the linden tree blossoms the pollinators had been feeding on.
Every major bee die-off reported to the agriculture department in the past few years has taken place near the trees, which are often sprayed with chemicals to control aphids.
