ELLSWORTH — Blueberry growers will likely put in smaller honeybee and bumble bee orders this year for pollinating crops because growers are taking some fields out of production, experts say.

Homer Woodward, vice president of operations for Jasper Wyman & Son, said his company’s bee order would likely be reduced by 25 percent.

He said the decrease in the bee order is not only to make up for the drop in price for last year’s crop, but because Wyman’s will be cutting the number of fields to be harvested by 1,200 acres.

Woodward cited the continuing and growing pressure of excess inventory and competition from high bush, or, cultivated blueberries.

Maine and Eastern Canada are the only areas in North America that grow native, wild blueberries. Most of the crop is frozen every year.

“We’ve had to take a look at fields and decide which ones are able to produce fruit at the new price structure,” Woodward said. “The ones that aren’t are being taken out of production.”

He said land that does not yield as much fruit is usually newer blueberry fields and/or fields that are harvested by hand rather than by machine.

“The market structure has changed so our farmers have to change with it,” Woodward said.

David Yarborough, blueberry specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said growers have been reducing the number of hives ordered in recent years.

“We were up at about 70,000 hives, but last year it was in the 50,000 range,” he said.

Yarborough said that although the yield continues to break records, the price has dropped 15 cents per pound each of the last three years.

He said official numbers are not yet available, “but it’s probably going to be somewhere around 30 cents” per pound.

“The year before that the price was 46 cents a pound, and the year before that, 60 cents a pound,” Yarborough said.

He said the industry is experiencing fierce competition from high bush blueberry growers in the Pacific Northwest region from Oregon north to British Columbia, in addition to growers in other parts of the country and overseas.

“British Columbia had 170 million pounds of blueberries last year, which now makes it the largest blueberry producing area in the world,” Yarborough said. “They are competing directly with wild blueberries.”

He said the high bush blueberry growers sell their blueberries fresh and then are freezing more and more for sale later.

Yarborough said growers in British Columbia also have the benefit of substantially lower prices for electricity than Maine, which comes into play when blueberries are frozen and stored.

“A lot of Canadians ship more of their berries to Europe than we do,” he said. “The Canadians have a more aggressive program.”

Yarborough said some wild blueberry growers will go out of business while others will continue to bear more fruit from the fields they continue to keep in production.

“In the 1950s, we had 150,000 acres of blueberries and 10 million pound crops,” he said. “In the 1970s, we had 70,000 acres and 20 million pounds. Now we have 44,000 acres producing 100 million pounds.”

“If we didn’t have that consolidation we would not be able to compete on the world marketplace,” Yarborough said.

And for every challenge there is an opportunity, he said.

The average per-capita consumption of strawberries is 9 pounds per person, while people are only eating 3 pounds of blueberries on average.

“There are a lot of people out there who could be eating more blueberries,” he said.

Frank Drummond, an entymology professor at the University of Maine, said he too expects fewer beehive orders this year.

“I suspect there will be many fewer honeybee colonies because the price was so low last year it almost did not cover the cost of production,” Drummond said.

He said the honeybee and bumble bee hives generally cost about $100 per hive.

“Many blueberry farmers are strapped,” Drummond said. “When that happens quite often they cut back on the number of honeybees they use. Because of that, there should be an ample supply.”

Minnesota public schools, for the first time, have joined Vermont, Maine and 14 other states in offering wild blueberries through the USDA Commodity Food Program, according to the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine. The blueberries were provided in new, 24 pound cases made up of eight 3-pound bags. Previously, wild blueberries were only offered in 30-pound bulk cases. The commission said the smaller packaging is designed to accommodate school kitchens by enabling small batch cooking and smoothie making as well as reducing the need to repackage or to crowd freezers. The commission received a $50,000 state marketing grant to actively target 36 states that have not added wild blueberries to their USDA Commodity Food List. “Each day, nearly 15 million breakfasts and 30 million lunches are served in U.S. public schools,” said Nancy McBrady, executive director of the commission. “As public schools work hard to nourish America’s children, Maine is making the case that wild blueberries, with their dense nutrition and delicious taste, can provide a dependable, kid-friendly solution.” McBrady said Maine’s wild blueberry industry has recently experienced larger than expected crops along with increased competition from the cultivated blueberry industry.