The Associated Press reported recently that, “Winter hit U.S. honeybees hard with the highest loss rate yet, an annual survey of beekeepers showed.
“The annual nationwide survey by the Bee Informed Partnership found 37.7% of honeybee colonies died this past winter, nearly 9 percentage points higher than the average winter loss.
“The survey of nearly 4,700 beekeepers managing more than 300,000 colonies goes back 13 years and is conducted by bee experts at the University of Maryland, Auburn University and several other colleges.”
The AP article indicated that, “Bees pollinate $15 billion worth of U.S. food crops. One-third of the human diet comes from pollinators, including native wild bees and other animals, many of which are also in trouble, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“‘We should be concerned on multiple levels,’ said University of California, Berkeley, agricultural social scientist Jennie Durant, who has a separate study this week on loss of food supply for bees.
“Year-to-year bee colony losses, which include calculations for summer, were 40.7%, higher than normal, but not a record high, the survey found.”
“For more than a decade, bees have been in trouble with scientists blaming mites, diseases, pesticides and loss of food,” the AP article said.
