Last week I was perusing ODN when I came across the photo of Rocky Lundy’s with the honey bee in the peach blossom.Thank you Rocky for submitting the photo and thank you to the publisher for posting it. That photo has given me inspiration for today’s column.
Honey bees pollinate one third of everything we eat. They pollinate over 30,000 species of plants around the world. Dollar wise bee activity contributes to over 200 billion worth of goods world wide every year.
Bee colonys’ are under severe strain. Some of those factors are mites, poor nutrition, habitat loss, and pesticides. In 2006, the term colony collapse disorder was coined to describe a multitude of hive problems. Bee keepers found that a healthy hive could perish within three days, giving little time to take counter measures.
Two of the mites plaguing bees are the Varroa Destructor, which carries a virus called Deformed Wing Virus which infects the larval and/or pupating bees resulting in death or deformity, and the Acarpis Woodi Mite which live and reproduce in the trachea of bees. The mites feed on the haemolymph of the bees which weakens them and leads to high winter mortality.
Poor nutrition factors involve bee keeper’s education.
Habitat loss is the destruction of native plants limiting bee activity to managed (fruit and vegetable) spring blossoms and summer time garden flowers.
Personally, our household consumes 3 kg of honey every month. We use it primarily for coffee and tea. We could get along without honey but could the world get along without the honey bee? Hopefully science will save our winged friend and helper from total destruction.