Ecologicalbeekeeping.com
Where Have All The Bees Gone?
Home
Feral Bee Project
The Library Links Page
Bees Gone Wild Apiaries Derry PA
Feral Queens
100 Bee Sting Remedies
Breeding Honeybees
Honeybee Swarms
Where Have All The Bees Gone?

Where Have All The Honeybees Gone?

That’s a question beekeepers have been answering allot lately. Honeybees - (Apis mellifera) until recently could be seen daily going about there business visiting flowering plants in backyards, gardens and fields gathering nectar for themselves and pollinating the plants for us in return. Many fruit, vegetable and horticultural crops depend on their assistance for pollination and fruit set. The honeybees disappearance is due to the arrival of the varroa mite. A serious honeybee pest, the varroa mite, is among the worst enemies of honeybees worldwide. The spread of the Varroa mite is the most significant event affecting beekeeping in over a century.

honeyvarroamitelarge.jpg
Varroa Mite

varroamiteonpupa.gif
Varroa Mites on Honeybee Pupa

varroamiteonbee.jpg
Varroa Mites on Honeybee

The varroa mite - (Varroa jacobsoni) was first detected in the United States in 1987 and likely arrived via importation of uninspected bees into Florida. Since then its spread throughout the United States has been rapid and fatal, especially to feral colonies. In the United States, these mites have attacked bees in almost every state. Varroa mites are small only about 1/16 inch in size (the diameter of a pin head) but they can destroy a hive of tens of thousands of bees in as little as six months. Losses of feral bees have been estimated to be upwards of 95% in some places while some beekeepers suffered losses of over 80% of their colonies forcing some beekeepers out of business.

Beekeepers in our area are currently working together in an effort to revive and stabilize the honeybee population, but we need your help. The key in helping the honeybees rebound from the devastating varroa mite is in locating surviving honeybee swarms so they can be recovered by beekeepers and bred with other surviving honeybee stock to produce a more mite resistant honeybee. We are asking fire departments, local police departments, pest control business, and people thought the community to be on the look out for honeybee swarms and help the honeybees recover by calling a beekeeper.

Bees Gone Wild Apiaries