Honeybee Update from WSU Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, this is today’s Fruit Grower Report. Are we losing honeybees at crisis levels as some reports would have us believe?
Brandon Hopkins, research professor in the Washington State
University Apiary Program, says the crisis scenario is confusing because overall, bees face challenges in general …
HOPKINS … “The same sort of threats and issues that all bees face, honeybees certainly face them as well, but we manage those situations and we manage the population and we can treat for disease and feed them when there’s no natural food.”
But Hopkins says commercial honeybees are fine …
HOPKINS … “I think the crisis and the outcry is really probably better directed at the probably more of the solitary and native bees because we can, you know, as agricultural producers, manage honeybees.”
And, Hopkins says they’re managed pretty well …
HOPKINS … “The native bees that are sort just of in the landscape, don’t really have any choice in terms of being able to move or find new homes or be able to sort of be fed or managed or rapidly increase populations with sort of human intervention and management. And so, they’re kind of just stuck with whatever they have in their area.”
Listen tomorrow for more on the real problems facing today’s honeybees and how they’re managed.
