Subject: Disappearing Wild Bees?

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 01:22:00 GMT

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Hi Jim, Greeting of the Season!

JG>I attended a program today in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  The speaker was
  >telling about the sad enviromental outlook for good old Earth.  During the
  >presentation the speaker stated that last summer (summer of 96) NO WILD BEES
  >had been found by scientists in ANY OF THE 50 STATES!

Just is not true. Wild bee populations and wild honeybee populations
are subject to dramatic fluctuations in populations, but most of these
are not a problem.

JG>I've been scanning the web searching for information to back up this
  >statement.  So far I have found nothing that supports this statement.

In the north east there was a paper at one of the universities that said
wild honeybee populations were done in a survey they did, but it must
remember that there were no back ground or base line surveys to base
such statements on and they are of little value or merit other then to
generate hysteria among the people in hopes of funding for more
research.

JG>I am an avid gardener (no simple chore in the state of Wyoming), in my
  >garden this past summer I had the usual honey bees doing their thing just as
  >they always have.  I realize there are many species of bees and I am no
  >expert.  I asked our local science teacher - he  takes care of the park in
  >our town.  He does know about bees and he is sure he saw the usual bees this
  >past year and he has heard about the various mite,parasite, and African bee
  >problems but nothing about wild bees disappearing .

Good point, and more then that the production of most foods that depends
on bees was unchanged over the year before yields, except in the areas
that had weather problems.

JG>My question is this - ARE ALL THE WILD HONEY BEES GONE?  IS THERE A HUGE
  >PROBLEM WITH THE WILD BEE POPULATION?

NO, the wild honeybees are not gone. There populations have been
dropping for years because of many reasons, mostly related to nesting
sites, year around bee food plants, and changing beekeeping management.

There is and never was a "wild honeybee" population in the America's.
The so called "feral" or wild honeybee are escaped hive bees, and their
populations depend on how successful the work of the beekeeper is who
see's his job at keeping his own bees from becoming wild or feral
through swarming and does everything to prevent this. The biggest change
in my lifetime as a beekeeper, (40+ years), is that swarming is not the
problem it once was to beekeepers. We have learned how to control it
through better stock replacement and better beekeeping practice.

Much of the US and Canada suffered a late winter and cold spring last
year and this alone took it's tole in honeybees that did not survive the
winter. Most of these losses were made up by the beekeepers last summer
and numbers are back to normal. The results of this also was less
swarming and less bees escaping to the wild.

The long range trend in the number of honeybees does show a decline. The
reason for this is the same as in all agriculture, beekeepers are
getting older and new one's are not replacing them. Beekeeping is a lot
of hard work, requires some skill, and does not pay well even with honey
selling a all time record highs it is not as good today being a
beekeeper as say 40 or 50 years ago.

  >I teach and I want to make sure the students were given correct information
  >and I would like to know if the bees I'm seeing are not wild.  (Our small
  >town is located in the middle of the Red Desert and no one around for 70
  >miles keeps bees).

I bet there is a least one person who does.<G> I am not sure where Red
Desert is, but I have never found a place in the US that some beekeeper
did not know about if it has any flowers at all.

In any case before European man made his home in the US there were
NO honeybees, and tomorrow we celebrate Thanks Giving because of the
relief provided to these early visitors by the American native's who did
well enough without honeybees to share with them their food.

And they did not have honey to sweeten their food, or beeswax candles
to chase the darkness away.

                        ttul Andy-

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