![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=272&fArticleId=2464247:
In the past year alone, up to half of all bees in the country may have died. The culprit is the tiny varroa mite, first identified here in 1986. The eight-legged parasite is no larger than a grain of salt, but to bees it is lethal.
The scourge is by no means confined to the US, but nowhere has it been as devastating. For a while after its arrival in the US (probably from Africa or Asia), the problem was manageable. However, the bug has now grown resistant to almost every chemical used against it.
Unless a new treatment is found, or a new mite-resistant breed of bee is developed, fruit crops including strawberries, cherries, apples, squash, avocados melons and cranberries, which to varying degrees depend on bee pollination, could be affected. Domestic honey production has also fallen steeply.
Nowhere is the threat greater than in California, to the state's annual production of almonds - half a billion kilos, or 80% of total world output.
--------
I don't know how much of this is hyperbole, but I suspect it's not too exaggerated.
And damnit if I don't love almonds...
In the past year alone, up to half of all bees in the country may have died. The culprit is the tiny varroa mite, first identified here in 1986. The eight-legged parasite is no larger than a grain of salt, but to bees it is lethal.
The scourge is by no means confined to the US, but nowhere has it been as devastating. For a while after its arrival in the US (probably from Africa or Asia), the problem was manageable. However, the bug has now grown resistant to almost every chemical used against it.
Unless a new treatment is found, or a new mite-resistant breed of bee is developed, fruit crops including strawberries, cherries, apples, squash, avocados melons and cranberries, which to varying degrees depend on bee pollination, could be affected. Domestic honey production has also fallen steeply.
Nowhere is the threat greater than in California, to the state's annual production of almonds - half a billion kilos, or 80% of total world output.
--------
I don't know how much of this is hyperbole, but I suspect it's not too exaggerated.
And damnit if I don't love almonds...
