Bee Deaths May Have Reached A Crisis Point For Crops

[crossfire]

According to a new survey of America's beekeepers, almost a third of the country's honeybee colonies did not make it through the winter.

That's been the case, in fact, almost every year since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began this annual survey, six years ago.Over the past six years, on average, 30 percent of all the honeybee colonies in

Comments

[wren123]

It would be nice if more cities allowed bee keeping. I know a lot of people who would love to keep bees. Which might help keep the population up. And while they are an introduced spicies, so are most of the plants that they polinate.

[crossfire]

I would SO love to keep bees. I'm not even caring about the honey and other products (though those are awesome), I just love having them in my garden.

[sixdemonhag]

I don't live in a city, but I've been thinking about getting some bees for a while. Nothing fancy, just something to help out a little. They scare me tho... :|

[the_siobhan]

I get honey bees in my garden all the time. They're pretty easy-going.

[bella_cheval]

I've been reading about this for a couple of years in a magazine called COUNTRYSIDE AND SMALL STOCK JOURNAL and it's disturbing. If more people knew how important bees are to the food supply, they'd be shocked. Or not. Anyway, I'd love to keep bees but I'm really, really allergic to them. Thankfully we have a lot of wild flowering trees and plants for them and a couple of neighbors have fantastic gardens.

[tiddlywinks103]

Sucks. A link to a California-based bee keeping org, trying to offset this.

Aaaand their Annual HoneyLove Yellow tie Event, too.

[miriamele]

I am pretty interested in this bee issue. I have taken steps to make my yard bee friendly and I've seen some around but I can't imagine I can make that huge of a difference.

I really like the idea of incentives to encourage people to grow flowers and maintain them. More people should do it. Plus it's good for everyone!

God I'm such a tree hugger.

[cindyanne1]

I would LOVE to keep honeybees! My grandfather used to do that; he had about six hives and would always bring us honey and royal jelly and stuff. Although I must say I can't eat honey on bread. I can drink it in tea and mix it with mustard and such to make a sauce, but not on bread at all!

My husband won't go for it though. He's really allergic to bee stings (they don't bother me any more than a mosquito.) My grandfather used to claim the honeybee venom was "good for what ails you." Maybe if you're not allergic to them, Grandpa!