Mystery killer silencing honeybees

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Mystery killer silencing honeybees

Something is killing the nation's honeybees.

Dave Hackenberg of central Pennsylvania had 3,000 hives and figures he has lost all but about 800 of them.

In labs at Pennsylvania State University, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, and elsewhere in the nation, researchers have been stunned by the number of calls about the mysterious losses.

"Every day, you hear of another operator," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. "It's just causing so much death so quickly that it's startling."

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:shk:

These little guys just can't seem to catch a break.

Loam Good find,
This is actually very sad, honeybees are a prime source creator of food for many mamils (e.g. bears etc with honey) and birds, they are also soo important to the biodiversity of all plant, tree and flower species as the role they play in pollination.

I have been trying to figure out what environmnetal trigger could have caused this. It is not the change in farm usage or materials that has been this way for decades now, it cant be the stresses due to their food sources as above and in addition they are attracted and get pollen from many mnay differant sources.

I have looked into the diseases that affect bees and insects in general in the USA and their is nothing that seems to point to a disease or parasite. There is no new predatator on the USA that would be attacking the hives and nests, infact with all the birds dropping out of the sky, and more pollen available due to the changes in the weather making many plants flower and produce pollen past their normal availability, these factors should give the Honey bee population a real boost not this result.

All I can think of is a Environamental weather or climate change that is affecting them. I know they are very climate sensitive and even though I cant work out if the link is the fall in water vapour in the air, increased temp or even a change in the seasons and not such a cold winter... it seems to be have to be the climate.

Very Very Very tragic and sad.

Regards

Elf.

Loam Good find,
This is actually very sad, honeybees are a prime source creator of food for many mamils (e.g. bears etc with honey) and birds, they are also soo important to the biodiversity of all plant, tree and flower species as the role they play in pollination.

I have been trying to figure out what environmnetal trigger could have caused this. It is not the change in farm usage or materials that has been this way for decades now, it cant be the stresses due to their food sources as above and in addition they are attracted and get pollen from many mnay differant sources.

I have looked into the diseases that affect bees and insects in general in the USA and their is nothing that seems to point to a disease or parasite. There is no new predatator on the USA that would be attacking the hives and nests, infact with all the birds dropping out of the sky, and more pollen available due to the changes in the weather making many plants flower and produce pollen past their normal availability, these factors should give the Honey bee population a real boost not this result.

All I can think of is a Environamental weather or climate change that is affecting them. I know they are very climate sensitive and even though I cant work out if the link is the fall in water vapour in the air, increased temp or even a change in the seasons and not such a cold winter... it seems to be have to be the climate.

Very Very Very tragic and sad.

Regards

Elf.

This has actually been going on for a number of years. The bumblebee population has been severely cut by disease (as bees from the south move north and bring germs) and by lack of environment (fewer native blooming flowers.)

There's also a number of pests that move into hives. I wonder if this is one that's better known in other areas of the country.

Originally posted by Byrd
This has actually been going on for a number of years.

This appears to be some 'new' unidentified problem. From the source article:

The problem caps 20 years of honeybee woes, including two mites that killed the valuable insect and a predatory beetle that attacked the honeycombs of weak or dead colonies.

"This is by far the most alarming," said Maryann Frazier, an apiculture - or beekeeping - expert at Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

...this level of death was unprecedented.