For Emma Egstad, the bees she tends to in her Portland apiary are not only the buzzing pollinators she's dedicated her time to raising and educating people about, they're a "mirror for the state of the planet."

And right now, that mirror isn't showing a very promising picture, researchers say.

According to a nationwide bee colony survey released in May, Oregon beekeepers lost 32.3 percent of their bees from summer 2016 to the end of winter this year, on par with the national average of 33.2 percent. For backyard beekeepers with smaller operations, the losses were even greater, with 45 percent of their colonies lost, according to the research nonprofit Bee Informed Partnership.

Habitat loss, disease and pesticides have been blamed for colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon that began a decade ago characterized by the disappearance of significant proportions of bee colonies in the U.S. and elsewhere. While the losses have slowed recently, the disorder has caused a decline in the health and population of bees.

The problem has prompted Portland area bee enthusiasts to do what they can to help bees recover their numbers and thrive. The enthusiasts host bees — sometimes multiple colonies — in their own backyards and community gardens.

Egstad, 24, took her love for bees and turned it into an educational apiary dubbed Bee and Bloom. Along with two friends who help keep the colonies healthy and run educational workshops, Egstad is among the thousands of members of Portland Urban Beekeepers, a group guiding residents on how to start their own colony.

Boasting 2,300 members who participate online and at monthly meetings, president Bill Catherall says interest has steadily grown over the past six years.

"I think urban beekeeping is kind of a growing trend in Portland right now because there seems to be a part of the world that's very focused on figuring out a sustainable way to live life, and that seems just to be important to the community," Edgstad said. "And bees really fit well into that."

Bee researcher Ramesh Sagili said Oregon's honeybee loss rate is normally much lower than the national average. If not for a new mite infecting hives and longer periods of cold weather this winter, Oregon's hives would have fared much better, Sagili said.

"There's a variety of reasons that we see bees dying off so quickly, there's pesticides, a lack of diversity of pollen and nectar," Sagili said of the overall decline in bee populations across the U.S. "It's a perfect storm."

In addition to amateur backyard beekeepers, enrollment in beekeeping education is up too. Program coordinators for Oregon State University's master beekeeper course say they have a lengthy wait list that keeps getting longer.

"(Urban beekeeping operations) serve as an important reminder to the public about honeybee pollination and remind people to think carefully about how they might be contributing to their decline," said Carolyn Breece, a researcher at OSU's Honey Bee Lab who works with the university's Master Beekeeper program. "When people see beehives... they're reminded that bees are responsible for the food they're eating."

For Portland Urban Beekeeper Laren Leland, who keeps bees to help pollinate her garden, the bees serve as a daily reminder of how her food is grown. Since she doesn't harvest honey from the bees, having them is simply a labor of love, she said.

"People everywhere are starting to get really concerned about the environment," Leland said. "I feel like it's just a thing people are starting to do now, is incorporating ways to care about the earth into their lives in ways that we didn't before."

--Olivia Dimmer

503-708-8630; @DimmerOlivia