posted on Jan, 24 2013 @ 07:36 PM
I'm a beekeeper. Have been for years.
It's normal to lose 10-20% of your hives, wintering. The claims of 50-70% shows an inept beekeeping company.
Bees aren't going extinct. No way. What is happening is an adaptation effect, and future generations will be more hardy.
The whole problem is that honey production is no longer a profitable endeavor. The honey producers can make more money renting out their hives to
pollinate crops, and it's not unusual for them to move crops from California to pollinate the almonds, to Georgia, to pollinate the peaches. That is
stress on a hive, and it introduces many pesticides that a non-transitory hive wouldn't experience.
They are insects, folks, with a lifespan of a month. The queen may live for 3-5 years, but no longer than that, and will be replaced when she is no
longer laying eggs. During a good year, over 30,000 new bees will be produced by a hive, and wintering a hive takes diligence in making sure your
bees have an ample surplus of honey on their hive, to eat during the winter. Commercial beekeepers often strip hives to the bare minimums, and their
Their hives aren't failing due to CCD, but they ARE starving to death. Shame on them. A 70% failure rate wintering is ONLY bad beekeeping.
However, the facts of pesticides is true. They ARE killing the bees. Moving hives spreads the pesticides. Very bad for the overall health of your
I see the fact of moving hives to pollinate crops across the country to only exacerbate the problem. We honestly need more beekeepers across the
country to maintain stationary hives. The almond growers in California, instead of paying someone to move hives in during the season, should pay an
individual instead, to maintain stationary hives throughout the year.
Same with Georgia. Same with the countless thousands of acres of farm land that needs pollinated. A bee can fly 10 miles while foraging. If you
don't want the species to die out, get more people raising bees.
The natural genetic resistance to a local is reinforced after every generation. I cannot stress enough that bees should NOT be moved. It messes with
their instincts of geolocation, and causes unnecessary hive losses.
Do you know what happens when you have a healthy hive, and you move it? All the foraging bees can't find their way home. They get lost, and die,
because they can't find their home. That same bee was born in that hive, and is genetically programmed to recognize the hive it left from. When
it's gone, that poor bee flies around where it's hive should have been, and dies of starvation. The more you move hives around, the more bees from
that hive that die.
Who's killing the bees? The commercial beekeepers that don't understand the basics. Move a hive for profit, but that's not the way bees roll.
They want a single hive, during their lives, and they want to go home to it everyday. A stress free life.
Grrr. I better quit ranting. I tend to be rather passionate about any thread about bees, and have my own beekeeping thread here. Yes, we are
screwed if all the bees die, but responsible management will cure the issue. Even though pesticides are to blame for CCD, we need to also address
factors that spread contaminates amongst hives.