AUGUSTA, Maine — A mild winter and unseasonably warm early spring have created conditions reminiscent of 2010, when an explosion in mite populations killed off many bee colonies in Maine.
Tony Jadczak, state apiarist and bee inspector, is warning beekeepers to monitor for the varroa mite, an external parasitic mite that attacks European honeybees.
“The bees are coming out, but so are the parasitic mites,” Jadczak told the Kennebec Journal. “What I’ve seen in my inspections is elevated mite loads because of the good health of the honeybees. If it tracks like it did in 2010, we’ll have a huge die-off in the fall and winter.”
Maine beekeepers have suffered enormous losses since the parasite from the Asian honeybee was introduced into the United States in the mid-1980s.
And parasitic mites are not the only concern for beekeepers.
Beekeepers and some scientists say pesticides are killing bees and weakening their immune systems, making them more susceptible to pathogens. They say it could contribute to colony collapse disorder, in which all the adult honeybees in a colony suddenly disappear or die.
Bees are vital to U.S. agriculture because they pollinate many flowering crops, including blueberries.
Maine doesn’t have enough bees in the state to pollinate all the crops, so thousands of bee hives are brought in by commercial beekeepers every year.
I dont like them dang bees anyway! :)
Jay — Likely you’re thinking of carnivorous yellowjackets or other wasps. The gentle herbivorious Apis Mellifera L., the honeybee, is our friend. The ladies are mostly sweet and, if you’ve eaten food today or are wearing any natural fabrics in your clothing, you have the honeybee to thank for their contracted pollination services. Sudden Colony Collapse Disorder, and the Verroa Jacobsoni mite, are a seriously evil threat to our little furry honeybee friends, and thus to our own way of life. Please don’t confuse carnivores with herbivores. We have a lot to learn from the Maine State Insect and it behooves us all to do whatever we can to help the little helpful critters.
Right you are, but all of them – even the mud daubers – have roles to play in nature’s grand performance, roles every bit as important as ours, whatever that is.
NO BEES, NO FOOD…..get it?
Yes, I hear your words from the rooftops. Who is listening?
This is what war has brought. Always trying to kill the enemy, instead of learning to live together, like an organic garden.
The attitude of war is the culprit, it is killing the bees and our food supply.
Sun-Tzu author of “The Art of War” states first to kill the bees and the food supply to weaken the enemy for pacification. But who cares about a few, stupid bees.
Let”s go to the Mall and go shopping. Forgetaboutit.
No bees means humanity is extinct in 50 years
Such an important item and see how many people write a response? Are we in trouble as a people? I am besides myself. What stupidity abounds and yet I attempt to be positive, go figure.
Read up on Monsanto and bees. Real food and real insects are the best idea in my opinion.
Anyone else have a ton of mud daubers this year? Creepy little things.
Without bees we will starve. The movie “Vanishing of the Bees” on Netflix will help people understand, I pray.
I saw yesterday two truck loads of bees going north on 95
Those are sickly foreign bees trucked up from Florida or other parts South of us. The migrant beekeepers get $150-$175 per hive for pollination services.
Just think – if we didn’t have the “wild” blueberry, potato, apple, strawberry monocultures poisoning the ground and our drinking water with pesticides, we could safely raise bees here and we could be making that money.
My bees were killed some years ago by pesticides which drifted across a small river and poisoned the bees instantly. Not one lived past the day. I haven’t had any since, because I don’t want to subject them to such a death.
Too bad the state apiarist, Tony Jadzak, wiggles around questions about pesticides. He’s part of the Maine Dept. of Agrculture and supports the use of pesticides, even though nearly every pesticide label says (in addition to harm to humans and other creatures), “Harmful to bees.”
There are professional migrant beekeepers who will no longer truck their bees to Maine because of all the pesticides killing their bees.
Maybe this has no connection but when I lived out of state, every time the lawn insecticide truck [green lawn or whatever their name was the neighbors used], came up my street in a few days my driveway would be covered with dead bees. It made me really upset.
It’s totally connected. On nearly every pesticide label, it says “harmful to bees.”
Pesticides are harmful to humans, too, but because the big agriculture guys give money to politicians, as do the big chemical companies, pesticides are almost never mentioned as the cause of anything.
It’s good to see Assoc. Press mention pesticides in this story. Bet they didn’t get that from Jadzak, who’s in bed with the pesticide sprayers. He’s part of the Maine Dept. of Agricuture, which supports pesticide users.
The Maine Commissioner of Agricuture, Whitcomb, is a dairy farmer who grows Monsanto’s genetically-engineered corn and feeds it to his dairy cows.
So everyone who drinks milk or eats cheese or yogurt or butter from his cows is eating some of Monsanto’s toxic bacteria they use to force the corn plants to accept the alien DNA.
Health effects from genetically-mutated “food” like corn and soy – which are everywhere in our food – are showing up more and more.
Grow a little garden (no pesticides, please, they’re not needed) this year, then a larger one next year. We need to get independent of these vampire squid corporations that poison us for their only goal – more money in the CEO’s pockets.
The prolification of autism has escalated in a direct ralationship to the increase use of genetically modified organisms, aka/ GMO.
The Dept of Agriculture and Dept of Health and Human Services are both aware of this situation but refuse to protect the children Title 22, chapter 1071, Child Protection Act.
This is some of the corruption by state workers that Governor LePage is talking about.