Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

I can confirm that the last few decades’ North American honey bee die-off described in the Telegraph.co.uk article occurred.

The articles claim that “Experts are at a loss to explain the fall in honey bee populations in America”, or experts widely believe “a new disease, the effects of pollution or the increased use of pesticides could be to blame”. According to a ca. 1990 Scientific American article (I’ll attempt to edit in a reference soon), the cause was thought to be fairly well-understood. The extensive transportation of commercial apiaries (mobile “hive farms”) for crop pollination is believed to have spread bee infesting mites (bugs do, as the old nursery rhyme goes, have smaller bugs on their backs to bite ‘em) and various less understood pathogens, from regions where the bees were resistance to them, to regions where resistance was lacking.

Although the man-maintained hives were impacted, US bee keepers were able to recover, largely by increasing replacement breeding. The native wild-bee populations, however, were devastated. In the opinions of many experts, such as a friend of mine who is a commercial bee keeper, any true honey bee found in the mid-Atlantic US is likely to have strayed from a apiary, or from a wild hive from an escaped queen from one. It’s likely that all or nearly all native wild hives in the US where commercial bee keeping was practiced were wiped out before 1995.

Bee keepers such as my friend responded by voluntarily “regionalizing” apiaries – not transporting hives long distances, but maintaining them locally and transporting them only short distances. There’s some evidence that various honey bees species are making a comeback in areas where they were effectively extinct decades ago, though whether these are resurgences of wild bee colonies, or due to escaped commercial bees, is uncertain.

Nature's response to this extinction was remarkable. Other species, primarily wasps, moved into and took over the ecological niches vacated by extinct bee species. In many cases, these wasps were near look-alikes for honey bees. So, even if bees regain their health, they may have a fight on their hands to regain ownership of their niches

My first conversation with my bee keeper friend was at an outdoor party, where someone had been stung by, and immediately killed, what they described as a bee. I laid out the dead insect, and pointing out its lack of a barbed stinger and fatally detachable poison sacks, explained that it was a bee look-alike wasp. Of course, this attracted my bee keeper friend, who had previously been a bit shy and aloof, who added his professional expertise to the talk. He wound up getting engaged to one of my old friends and neighbors who was also at the party, but that’s another story.

If you see what you think is a bee, check it (squishing it’s the easiest way, but if you’re morally opposed, a high-resolution camera with a good lens should work). If you live in North America, chances are it’s actually a species of wasp.