Drastic decline in Bee population

[rockhound]

I just read where a drastic drop in bee population ws occuring all over the US. Bee keepers are finding empty hives full of honey with all the bees missing. Most are blaming pesticides as the culprit, other are blaming viruses, fungi, or other causes. It seems as though the bees just flew off and died. As much as 1/3 of bee hives are empty this year. In the San Quacin valley, where the bulk of produce,fruit and nuts are grown, there is almost half of the hives decimated. There could be a great loss of vegetables,fruits and nuts this year, because all these are pollinated by bees. Investigators have found some pesticides in the honey and comb, but claim there is not enough to kill off the bees. It has lead to the ban of one pesticide, but others were not withdrawn for this year. There was a dire prediction made on 2000 by a scientist who said" when bees dissappear, human will not be far behind." Good Luck rockhound

 

[trikikiwi]

The loss of any Bee population is certainly something to worry about.
In the US, bee keepers are experiencing unprecedented die offs of bees some losing as much as 80% of their colonies. Commercial beekeepers in 22 states have reported deaths of tens of thousands of honeybee colonies. So far the cause remains unexplained and somewhat mysterious. It is being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and is causing agricultural honeybees nationwide to abandon their hives and disappear and raising worries about crops that need bees for pollination. It’s a kind of mass suicide in the bee world. “There have been cases where there have been these die-offs of bees before, but we have never seen it to this level,” said Maryann Frazier, a Pennsylvania State University entomologist. “One operation after another is collapsing.”
All of the following are dependant on bees, apples, pears, tangerines, peaches, soybeans, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, carrots, broccoli and avocados. And do we realise bees pollinate almonds? California has the biggest almond groves in the world, supplying 80 percent of the nuts on the market; they currently have to import millions of bees to pollinate the groves.
information from http://blog.targethealth.com/?p=58
We unfortunately have the Varroa mite now in NZ.
However, we still have some of the best honey in the World.
Our Manuka Honey especially, has its healing properties.
Sir Edmund Hilary was an apiarist
Mike