Genesis 1:25 So God made the wild animals, the tame animals, and all the small crawling animals to produce more of their own kind. God saw that this was good.
There is good news in the battle to stop honeybee losses. A new report says the “Beepocalypse” is a little further in the distance thanks to a 20 year high in colonies.
A report from the USDA shows that since the alarm was sounded in 2006 over “colony collapse disorder” the number of colonies has mostly risen in the following years.
The USDA report shows that with the exception of 2008, every year since 2006 showed an increase in colonies and overall bee population.
The decline in bee population caused concern because bees are the main source of pollination for plants. A decline in bees not only reduces the amount of honey available in the marketplace but also lowers the amount of other crops.
“It’s not the honey bees that are in danger of going extinct,” Kim Kaplan, a researcher with the USDA, told the Washington Post, “it is the beekeepers providing pollination services because of the growing economic and management pressures. The alternative is that pollination contracts per colony have to continue to climb to make it economically sustainable for beekeepers to stay in business and provide pollination to the country’s fruit, vegetable, nut and berry crops.”
Beekeepers have been instituting changes to improve the health and quality of the bee population including taking healthy hives and splitting them in two so that they create two healthy hives that can survive winter months.
