STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - Scientists looking into a mysterious ailment killing off honeybees are focusing their attention out West, where bees are buzzing around California's Central Valley to help pollinate the profitable almond crop.

Beekeepers arrive from around the country each year to help provide the 1.2 million colonies needed for the task. Researchers hope the diversity gives them a large sample from which to figure out why some bees remain healthy while others become afflicted with an illness called colony collapse disorder.

The ailment has killed off tens of thousands of honeybee colonies in at least 21 states, including Oregon, researchers said, threatening the livelihood of commercial beekeepers and potentially putting a strain on fruit growers and other farmers that rely on bees to pollinate their crops.

Bees help pollinate more than 90 commercially grown crops, according to the National Research Council.

Pollination of the $1.4 billion California almond crop couldn't have come at a better time for researchers scrambling for answers. About half of the nation's available commercial bees are transported to California each February for the task, when trees burst with light pink-and-white blossoms.

Marsha Venable, spokeswoman for the Almond Board of California, which represents growers, said a group task force assigned to monitor the situation found last week there was no bee shortage this year.

“There's a sense of comfort of enough bees to do the job,” Venable said Monday by phone. California accounts for 80 percent of the world's almonds, according to that state's food and agriculture department.

But bee researchers from Pennsylvania and Montana who have spent the last couple weeks in California collecting test samples said they have heard stories of beekeepers having lost colonies by the thousands, forcing them to return home with no work and few bees.

“One yard had colonies that were failing. One was one of the worst cases we've seen. A third yard was relatively well - and all three from different states,” University of Montana bee researcher Jerry Bromenshenk said in a phone interview on Monday. “That's why we are all focused in California at this point.”

The first report of colony collapse disorder came into researchers at Penn State University in November, though scientists now think that the problem may have been around as early as a couple years ago.

Bromenshenk is also president of Bee Alert Technology Inc., a Missoula, Mont.-based firm that is surveying beekeepers to determine the geographic extent of the problem.

While there are no definitive answers, he said survey results so far show the first signs of the illness may have popped up in Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Twenty-one states, including Pennsylvania, have reported problems according to Bromenshenk's survey. Bromenshenk and Dennis vanEnglesdorp, acting state apiarist for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, said Monday there also was a reported potential problem in a 22nd state - Texas.

Bromenshenk and vanEnglesdorp will be among a group of researchers - along with scientists from Penn State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture - and beekeepers who plan to meet in Florida next week to discuss the problem.

Bee Alert, which is affiliated with the University of Montana, describes itself as a company that applies bee research, such as using the flying insects to detect land mines and air toxins or helping commercial beekeepers manage and protect hives.