5-18 IAN Bees to be Regulated

 Forget about all the wild flowers and plants that we enjoy during our times outdoors, whether we be nature lovers, ranchers, farmers or just going for a walk in the foothills. Do you know that bumblebees are responsible for pollinating about 15 percent of all the crops grown in the U.S. That’s a total crop value of $3 billion. But as we have reported again and again, diseases collectively known as colony collapse disorder have been decimating populations of honeybees worldwide as demand for these pollinators grows… especially for hothouse crops such as tomatoes, peppers and strawberries, and field crops such as blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, squash and watermelon.

 Federal agricultural authorities are now being asked by commercial honeybee operators, conservationists along with scientists to start regulating shipments of commercially domesticated bumblebees in an effort to prevent domestically produced bees from infecting wild bumblebees and threatening their survival. The culprit appears to be diseases spreading out of greenhouses that use domesticated bumblebees. Idaho Honey Industry Association’s Bill Ahaus talks about chemicals affecting commercial bees: “It’s a symbiotic relationship. Two chemicals that by themselves don’t kill bees, when they are present together, they become toxic.”

 A report in 2007 said habitat loss, pesticides, pollution and diseases coming from  greenhouses using commercial bees were factors in the decline of pollinators around the world.