WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Mysterious disorder destroys NC honeybee colonies

Mysterious disorder destroys NC honeybee colonies

(Raleigh, N.C.-AP) February 14, 2007 - Honeybees are disappearing from eastern North Carolina, and it's being blamed on a mysterious trend that's stung bee populations nationwide.

Jeff Lee rents out his honeybees to pollinate his fruit and vegetable crops. He says he started noticing an unusual trend a few months ago. When he would open a bee box, sometimes it would be empty.

Lee estimates he's lost about 30 percent of his 1,000 bee colonies in the past six months.

The losses have raised alarm among farmers who depend on insects to pollinate their crops. Bees pollinate about a third of the food people eat.

Since the mid-1980s, honeybees have been plagued by two exotic parasitic mites. Entomologists at North Carolina State University estimate that those mites have cut the number of managed hives in North Carolina from 180,000 to about 100,000.

But a bee inspector with the Department of Agriculture said bees are now dying without explanation.

Posted 8:14am by Bryce Mursch