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closeWhy are bees now more susceptible to parasites and diseases?
Posted by rowantree47 on 19 Dec 2014 at 17:00 GMT
Has anyone considered the possibility that bee-keeping itself could be driving the multitude of parasites and diseases of bees now found? Bee-keepers prevent swarming so each hive is larger than in the wild. Hives may be moved to create high bee densities to pollinate crops where flowers are more densely packed than in the wild. Is the situation analogous to that when humans moved into densely populated cities and were periodically subject to epidemics of the black death, cholera and smallpox? If so one would expect colony collapse to be more common in areas such as California where high densities of bees are maintained/gathered to pollinate crops. Less common where less dense populations yielding honey from wild flowers are maintained (I think of the heather honey and Spanish regional honey I buy on my travels). It would be interesting to know whether the areas of lower disease mentioned for Europe and Asia are associated with lower peak bee density than for high disease regions.