MEXICO: There has been increase in the death rates of honey bees and within a year more than 40% honeybee colonies disappeared. There various reasons to this and it include some harmful parasites preying on these honeybees. It also includes seed coating and pesticides being used on the plants.
That’s the second-largest loss of honeybees ever recorded in a single year, according to the new report out from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It continues a troubling trend of significant honeybee losses that has been persisting for nearly a decade now.
Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti talks with Steve Tilmann of the Michigan Beekeepers Association about what he’s seeing, and about the environmental and economic impacts of honeybee loss.
On what’s been happening to his bee colonies
“The previous winter I lost all of my colonies – 18. So last summer, I had to start over again. Given the fact that we’re starting from scratch, and I’m not alone in that situation, we were able to build up our colonies to about 11 colonies going into the late summer, early fall last year. We had some loss before the winter set in, and of the 11 colonies, I believe right now I have one that’s surviving.”
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