Honeybee Problem Reported

[ponto]

In a mysterious condition affecting honeybees called colony collapse disorder, the potential effect could go well beyond beekeepers, to your dinner table.

Herb Farm @ Strodes Run has 29 hives on the farm and they report they have never known colony collapse disorder to be in this area before last year.

It's a mystery -- one day a beekeeper will go out to tend his hive, and it?ll be in great shape, just thriving with bees. The next day they will go out, the hive will still be perfect, except for one thing: no bees.

Bees are becoming increasingly important in Kentucky as farmers who have grown tobacco all their lives move to food crops.

Tom Webster, a Kentucky State University bee researcher, says honeybees are responsible for $14 billion in agricultural products each year.

[Foxy]

When is the Harvest this year at the Herb Farm? I am out of all the honey we bought last year, and I had to resort to "store bought" and it was YUCK!! WE NEED MORE HONEY!!!

[snowtiger]

OH MAN, is Strodes Run's bees ok? I would like to come out and buy some this year, never had honey other than from the store. I LOVE HONEY!!

[Chuck]

So what your saying is that the bees are getting wise??? :attention:

Let re-translate what is happening here...
Bee's are realizing, all of a sudden, that the owner of the "White BOX" they called "HOME" was being "BURGLARIZED" :mad: of all their sweet Little nectaries without any real return for their work. Now they are packing up and moving out to "Greener Pastures". :eek:

I really don't see that as a "Mysterious Condition". What is "Mysterious" is that you see it as odd.

If you remember I told you a year or so ago that this would happen. Your Mules will be next.... :croc:

[kdown]

It appears it is a little more serious than moving.


Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a honey bee disease, disorder or syndrome that describes the massive die-off affecting an entire colony. It is apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America.[1] The cause of the syndrome is not yet well understood and even the existence of this disorder remains disputed. CCD may be environmental, or may be caused by unknown pathogens or by mites or associated diseases. CCD is possibly linked to pesticide use though several studies have found no common environmental factors between unrelated outbreaks studied.

Limited occurrences resembling CCD have been documented as early as 1896[2], and this set of symptoms has in the past several decades been given many different names (disappearing disease, spring dwindle, May disease, autumn collapse, and fall dwindle disease). In none of the past appearances of this syndrome has anyone been able to determine its cause(s). Upon recognition that the syndrome does not seem to be seasonally-restricted, and that it may not be a "disease" in the standard sense (in that there may not be a specific causative agent), the syndrome was re-named[3].

From 1971 to 2006 approximately one half of the U.S. honey bee colonies have vanished, but this decline includes the cumulative losses from all factors such as urbanization, pesticide use, tracheal and Varroa mites and commercial beekeepers retiring and going out of business. The rate of attrition is alleged to have reached new proportions in the year 2006 and attribution has been made to the CCD phenomenon.[

[Chuck]

It appears it is a little more serious than moving.



So glad you cleared that up.

[Bengals_Mama]

Are they actually dying, or just disappearing? Have they found actual dead bees? This can be due to climate changes if that's the case.