Climatic drivers of honey bee disease revealed. Honey bee colonies worldwide have suffered from a range of damaging diseases. A new study has provided clues on how changing weather patterns might be driving disease in UK colonies. Source 7a.
Here in Germany no one talks about the "Honey bee dying" anymore, people concerned about the stability of our ecosystems since several years talk about the dying of insects IN GENERAL here in Central Europe: about 80 % of the total insect population in Central Europe have vanished in the last about 20 years! ! This should have as consequence that insect eating mammals, for example hedgehogs and bats, are also being severely reduced in number, and that pollination of flowering plants is reduced, too? ! As reasons for the amazing insect dying here biologists focus mainly on the excessive use of insecticides, mainly in agriculture. This excessive use maybe can only effectively be reduced by the European Parliament, but this one is over-busy with finding measures to stop the Ucraine War, and concerns about the decline of food production because of this war is not really an incentive for politicians to reduce the excessive use of insecticides in agriculture. So what can / should be done? My own answer would be, that the European Parliament should IMMEDIATELY pass a law which insures that insecticides may not be applied to the borders of the agricultural fields in Central Europe anymore. This would certainly help, and if it helps sufficiently will perhaps be seen soon enough? ! To do more would be fine, but may not be politically be able to be carried through? !
To denounce that their swarms of bees (Apis mellifera) were dying at an alarming rate. Several reasons have since been discovered, but "Disease is by far the leading cause of bee health problems at the moment," says Leonard Foster, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California. British Columbia. These hymenopterous insects suffer the ravages of diseases such as varroa, caused by parasitic mites, or American foulbrood, caused by bacteria. Now, a new study reveals that the smell of dead bees could be used to recognize and breed healthier colonies.