For the past decade or so scientists have been trying to determine the causes for a massive honey bee die-off that has been happening to the hives of commercial bee keepers in the US and UK. This honey bee die-off worsened in 2014, with some commercial bee keepers losing as much as 40 percent of their hives of bees.
In the US, the Bee Informed Partnership (wwww.beinformed.org) along with the Apiary Inspectors of America (www.apiaryinspectors.org/links.html) does a survey every year amongst bee keepers to check the health of their hives and the bee survival rate. The honey bee die-off rate for winter was revealed to be a little less at 23.1 vs. 23.7 percent, while the summer losses went up from …show more content…
However, the results showed more of a loss in the summer, which was very troubling since summer should be a time of plenty for bees to live and travel around in the sunshine and abundance of plants and flowers to get pollen from.
Mites cause some honey bee die-off problems
The study, which is paid for partly by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, found that when it came to bee hives kept by smaller backyard owners, the honey bee-die off was mostly caused by a parasite called the varroa mite, however, this wasn’t the case for larger, commercial bee keepers. The reason for this discovery is seen to be that some backyard owners don’t take proper care to protect their hives from the mites.
The mite is not present in the UK, and UK bee keepers are warned to be vigilant to protect their hives from this problem.
In addition to the mites, the researchers looked for signs of Colony Collapse Disorder (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder), which is a massive honey bee die-off caused by various problems such as pesticides pees are exposed to during their travel to find food, as well as mites, pathogens, loss of habitat, and other