Last January greeted California’s beekeepers with worry that they wouldn’t have enough bees to pollinate their biggest money-making event of the year — the almond bloom. Gene Brandi, who is the former president of the American Beekeeping Federation, who happened to be a California beekeeper, stated that the winter losses were were “as bad or worse” than he believes it has been, and he was right about it.
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It was another grim year for America’s beekeepers, already reeling from more than a decade of colony losses that threaten the commercial honeybee industry. An annual survey released in June by the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP), a nonprofit collaboration of leading research labs and universities, found that beekeepers lost 38 percent of their colonies last winter, the highest winter figure since the survey began 13 years ago.
Managed honeybees play a crucial role in the nation’s food production, contributing an estimated $15 billion to the U.S. economy each year by helping to pollinate at least 90 crops.
So what keeps the bees from flourishing? It’s the Varroa destructor, a parasitic Asian mite that snuck into the US over 30 years ago. How are they a danger to bees? Find out over at Undark.
(Image Credit: 12019/ Pixabay)
Source: neatorama