Honey bees are dying at an unsustainable rate. A new test could help beekeepers flag more disease resistant colonies.
Honey bees are dying at an unsustainable rate. A new test could help beekeepers flag more disease resistant colonies.
Beekeepers in the United States lost more than 55 percent of managed colonies last year—the highest loss rate since the Apiary Inspectors of America began determining them in 2011. A new study from University of Vermont scientists and international collaborators supports a novel method for testing hygienic behavior in honey bees that could promote breeding more disease resistant colonies in the future.
“Beekeepers are losing bees at a rate that they say is unsustainable,” says Samantha Alger, director of the Vermont Bee Lab at the UVM and lead author of the study. “In the ‘80s, beekeepers lost colonies 10-12 percent of the time … but now it's like 30-50 percent. Imagine that happening to someone who's a cattle farmer or a pig farmer every year.”
Read more at University of Vermont
Photo Credit: Thisabled via Pixabay
