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A Third of the Nation's Honeybee Colonies Died Last Year (usatoday.com)
A third of the honeybees in the United States were lost over the last year, part of a decade-long die-off experts said may threaten our food supply. USA Today reports: The annual survey of roughly 5,000 beekeepers showed the 33% dip from April 2016 to April 2017. The decrease is small compared to the survey's previous 10 years, when the decrease hovered at roughly 40%. From 2012 to 2013, nearly half of the nation's colonies died. The death of a colony doesn't necessarily mean a loss of bees, explains vanEngelsdorp, a project director at the Bee Informed Partnership. A beekeeper can salvage a dead colony, but doing so comes at labor and productivity costs. That causes beekeepers to charge farmers more for pollinating crops and creates a scarcity of bees available for pollination. It's a trend that threatens beekeepers trying to make a living and could lead to a drop-off in fruits and nuts reliant on pollination, vanEngelsdor said. So what's killing the honeybees? Parasites, diseases, poor nutrition, and pesticides among many others. The chief killer is the varroa mite, a "lethal parasite," which researchers said spreads among colonies.
2) What's the cause of the decline in the decline?
Most likely restrictions and better education on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.
30-40% is pretty drastic
Is it? What is a "normal" amount of die off? TFA gives no context for these numbers. A quick google search indicates that the natural lifetime of a queen bee is about 5 years. So that would mean a 20% die off under natural conditions.
There is no threat to honeybees (which in the US aren't even native). Queens can be bred in bulk (there are tricks to make a hive produce lots of queens), and starting a new hive only takes a queen and a handful of workers. Beekeepers can order them by mail.
Not quite true - farming practices and the beekeeping practices that are common in the US, are major threats. Pestices are not all that discerning - if they kill harmful insects, then they probably also kill the beneficial ones, and systemic pesticides like the neo-nicotinoids are absorbed into the crop plants and secreted in the nectar. Non-systemic pesticides are less likely to find their way into bees. But possibly the worst threat comes from the fact that beekeepers rely on a narrow monoculture, created by exactly the practices you described, plus of course the way in which American beekeepers in particular transport their hives from all over the US to California, where they can then exchange diseases.
There is no threat to honeybees (which in the US aren't even native). Queens can be bred in bulk (there are tricks to make a hive produce lots of queens), and starting a new hive only takes a queen and a handful of workers. Beekeepers can order them by mail.
Not quite true - farming practices and the beekeeping practices that are common in the US, are major threats. Pestices are not all that discerning - if they kill harmful insects, then they probably also kill the beneficial ones, and systemic pesticides like the neo-nicotinoids are absorbed into the crop plants and secreted in the nectar. Non-systemic pesticides are less likely to find their way into bees. But possibly the worst threat comes from the fact that beekeepers rely on a narrow monoculture, created by exactly the practices you described, plus of course the way in which American beekeepers in particular transport their hives from all over the US to California, where they can then exchange diseases.
Nice how you entirely ignored the largest threat the GP stated, as did the article and summary. The varroa mite is the primary cause of death in hives right now, outside the natural die off rate. Ironically, all the calls from the anti-pesticide crowd to protect the bees with tougher regulations on chemical usage is contributing to the problem. The only effective treatments right now for hives from the varroa mites are all... chemicals. Restricting chemicals bee farmers are allowed to use to control the mites, and mites developing resistances to what is used are a big problem and if beekeepers could receive a magic solution from the sky a method to better control mites is hands down what they would ask for. But go ahead and make arm chair proclamations about how entire industries are doing everything wrong and you've got 3 simple steps that would solve it all that somehow has eluded them entirely despite the enormous financial incentives to them in improving their methods.
Yeah. I can. Oxalic acid, the most effective chemical for treating for the varroa was just allowed in the US a few months ago.
So, it wasn't available to me last year when my beehive was almost lost to what was most certainly a virus caused directly or indirectly by varroa.