Photo: Columbus Dispatch
It was a problem. Then they came back. But new troubles threaten the economy and ag business in general. Why? No one knows. All they know is that the bees are missing.
Every year, the list of predators, diseases and other threats to honeybees seems to grow.
“It’s getting a bit scary,” said Susan Cobey, an Ohio State University researcher who breeds bees that are better survivors.
“As soon as I feel we are making some gains, something new comes up.”
Harsh winters, wet springs, fungi, viruses, pesticides and sprawl are among the threats that can wipe out whole hives of bees.
In the late 1980s, a parasitic mite aptly named Varroa destructor helped killed off most of the wild honeybees and created huge headaches for beekeepers. The latest problem, dubbed “colony collapse disorder,” is so new and mysterious that researchers nationwide are scrambling to pinpoint a cause.
Is it a new disease, pesticide or parasite that is causing bees to abandon their hives in Ohio and 23 other states? Or is it a combination of factors?
“That’s our dilemma,” said Dewey Caron, a University of Delaware entomologist and a member of a national group of scientists examining the disappearance.
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I posted this at the beginning of the month, “A Threat Bigger Than Al-Qeada: Honeybee Die-Off Threatens Food Supply”
http://tinyurl.com/2vl44u
I work in the homeland security arena and this is a very important issue. Nothing on an urgent scale, but something we need to get active on.
It could be because of all the predators, because of the bird population. My honest opion though is because of us. I know we blame ourselves for everything, but this time i think its seriously us. We spray pesticides on our plants to keep the bees away from us, but the thing is bees need those plants to survive and we do to or else we’re going to be eating alot of beans and rice. Bees can live for years when there not flying around and working, but they only live a few months because all their energy burns out. They have to fly miles now to find food and waste all their energy and just die before they get to the hive. I’m no doctor or expert but I know enough, I say we just downsize the pesticides and see what happens, see if the populations come back. i believe we’re starving them, instead of scaring them off, we need to accept them. Like the saying goes If we leave them alone they leave us alone. Thank you.