Bees Under Pressure In Ontario
Disturbing news on the bee front, CBC is reporting that researchers have found a parasite in every Ontario bee sample they analyzed in part of an effort to prevent a recurrence of the disaster that wiped out a third of the province’s honeybee colonies last winter.
The Ontario Beekeepers’ Association experts collected about 446 bee samples from 25 keepers and every one contained Nosema apis, a single-celled protozoan that affects the bees’ digestive systems. More than half of the samples had a more aggressive strain called Nosema ceranae, the association said in a release Tuesday.
It continues…
Almost 27,000 of the 76,000 hives in Ontario were killed last year, and many of the remaining colonies were badly weakened. While the immediate financial loss was relatively small — about $6 million — the problem highlighted the role of bees in pollinating other crops. Honey-bee pollination is responsible for one-third of food, the association said.
Yikes.
Nathan was thinking green at 7:48 AM on November 30, 2007
Comments are sorta kinda broken right now. We're working on it but to save energy can only work in daytime when solar system is at peak performance.
cbc bees+ontario ccd colony+collapse+disorder bee+parasite nosema
