MITE INFESTATION PUTS STING ON BEE POPULATION.Byline: Pam Slater Scripps-McClatchy Western Service Corporate America, entomologists and honey producers combined forces at the University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis, commonly known as UC Davis, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and was established as the University Farm in 1905. , last week to battle a tiny spider-like parasite that is threatening the agriculture industry. At a national meeting, participants agreed to marshal their forces against two kinds of mites that have killed nearly all of the country's wild honeybees and more than 60 percent of commercial bees. Annual losses to the American economy could run as high as $5.7 billion without the pollination services provided by the honeybee honeybee Broadly, any bee that makes honey (any insect of the tribe Apini, family Apidae); more strictly, one of the four species constituting the genus Apis. The term is usually applied to one species, the domestic honeybee (A. , according to experts. ``It is definitely the most severe problem we've ever faced in beekeeping beekeeping or apiculture Care and manipulation of honeybees to enable them to produce and store more honey than they need so that the excess can be collected. Beekeeping is one of the oldest forms of animal husbandry. in the United States since we began importing bees in the 1600s,'' said Dr. Eric Mussen, UCD UCD University College Dublin UCD User-Centered Design UCD University of California at Davis UCD University of Colorado at Denver (Denver, CO) UCD University of Colorado at Denver UCD Unicode Character Database honeybee expert. ``We've never had anything before that eliminated bees like this. Right now, probably 90 percent or more of the wild honeybees are gone.'' Officials of General Mills Inc., maker of Honey Nut Cheerios Honey Nut Cheerios is a variation of Cheerios breakfast cereal, introduced in 1979 by General Mills. As the first variation from Cheerios, it is sweeter than the original, with a honey and almond flavor. breakfast cereal, pledged they would donate 25 cents for every cartoon bee clipped from the fronts of the cereal's boxes and mailed in before the end of January. The money raised will go toward research to eradicate the mite. ``We are ready to fund this campaign up to $100,000,'' said Joe Rutledge, a General Mills vice president. Particularly hard hit by the mite infestation infestation /in·fes·ta·tion/ (-fes-ta´shun) parasitic attack or subsistence on the skin and/or its appendages, as by insects, mites, or ticks; sometimes used to denote parasitic invasion of the organs and tissues, as by helminths. has been northeastern United States, where millions of wild honeybees are now dead, Mussen said. A hard winter and the mites combined to eradicate almost all feral hives. Some crops, Mussen said, are not being produced or are in scarce supply with higher prices. California has not been as hard hit, he said, because of the huge number of bees here, most of which are raised in commercial hives where mite-killing pesticide can be applied. The state's almond growers have had to pay slightly higher pollination costs, said Blue Diamond Growers Blue Diamond Growers is a California-based agricultural cooperative and marketing organization that specializes in almonds. Founded in 1910, the organization claims to be the world's largest "tree nut processing and marketing company". spokesman Steven Easter, but haven't seen production fall. He estimated that the state's 7,000 almond growers may have paid about $2 million more last season to have beekeepers bring in hives. The honeybees are being infected by two types of mites, believed to have been bought into the United States during illegal importation of bees a decade ago. It has been illegal to import bees since 1922. The tiny tracheal mite lodges in the honeybee's breathing tubes where it lays its eggs, choking the bee to death. The second, the Varroa var·ro·a n. A reddish-brown, oval mite (Varroa jacobsoni) that is a parasite of honeybees. [New Latin Varroa, genus name, after Marcus Terentius Varro.] mite, clings to the honeybee's body, usually when the insect is in the pupa pupa (py  `pə), name for the third stage in the life of an insect that undergoes complete metamorphosis, i.e., develops from the egg through the larva and the pupa stages to the adult. stage, and siphons off its blood. The infected bees are born with stunted wings and shrunken bodies. There is one mite control available for each of the infestations, Mussen said, but some mites already have become resistant to the chemicals in some bee hives treated in Florida. Pamela Hill, manager of Sacramento Beekeeping Supplies, said the mite infestation began to hit the area three to four years ago. ``There was about an 80 percent loss on average of bee hives whether they were commercial or hobbiest,'' she said. She said that the use of the pesticides, however, has stabilized the hive population. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: UC Davis beekeeper Kim Fondrik inspects campus honey bee combs for the presence of parasitic mites. Associated Press |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion