Re: [CH] "artificial" pollination with brush
Brent Leatherman (brent@mail.feist.com)
Sun, 30 Aug 1998 10:47:44 -0500
>Just finished reading an article in the Globe & Mail, Canada's national
>newspaper regarding these mites that are decimating, not only the wild
>honey bee population, but also is creating havoc for the commercial
>honey producers...there are two mites, one from Europe and one from
>Asia...one gets into the digestive tract of the bee and the other feeds
>on the hatching eggs, the pupa and kills them off....scary problem for a
Sunday morning, and
>sorta on topic...Cheers, Doug in BC
>
Doug -
you're absolutely correct, this is a major problem, because the last
stats I saw had the mites taking out 90% of the wild bees, and 50% of the
commercial bees. This is going to have a major impact on crop production in
the future. Of course, one point to ponder is that the honeybee is not
itself native to North America (or so I've been led to believe by some
aspiary types), so I wonder what the native pollinators are?
Brent
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