{"id":46589,"date":"2019-06-11T06:37:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T11:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46589"},"modified":"2019-06-11T06:37:39","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T11:37:39","slug":"honey-bee-colonies-across-europe-plunge-16-says-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46589","title":{"rendered":"Honey Bee Colonies Across Europe Plunge 16%, Says Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Honey Bee Colonies Across Europe Plunge 16%, Says Study<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The total number of honey bee colonies across Europe plunged 16% over the winter 2017\u201318,<\/strong> according to COLOSS<\/a>(Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes), an international, non-profit organization based in Switzerland, tasked with the goals of protecting honey bees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allison Gray, the lead researcher on the study, sent a COLOSS questionnaire to 25,363 beekeepers in 36 countries: 33 in Europe, plus Algeria, Israel, and Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The data collected revealed an overall loss rate of 16.4% of honey bee colonies during winter 2017\/18 between the countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beekeepers were asked several questions about their hives: (a<\/strong>) were alive but had unsolvable queen problems (e.g., a missing queen, laying workers, or a drone-egg laying queen), (b<\/strong>) were dead or reduced to a few hundred bees and (c<\/strong>) were lost through natural disaster (from various possible causes).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gray and her team determined that Portugal, Northern Ireland, Italy, and England had the most significant colony collapses<\/strong> of more than 25%. The authors noted that smaller bee farms experienced higher loss rates than large-scale ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The overall loss rate in winter 2017\/18 was highest in Portugal (32.8%), a new country to the survey. Other countries with high losses (above 25%) were Slovenia, Northern Ireland, England, Wales, Italy, and Spain, countries mostly in Western Europe,” wrote Gray.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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A year earlier, loss rates were the lowest in Norway, Northern Ireland, and Algeria, and the year before that in Central Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winter losses linked to queen difficulties was 1% in Bulgaria to 20.3% in Slovenia, whereas for winter 2016\/17, the rate for this loss for Slovenia was the lowest for the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each hive’s queen is crucial for the survival of the overall colony. If a queen goes missing or doesn’t lay eggs to create more drones, the colony will collapse. Honey bees are also at risk from parasitic mites.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honey Bee Colonies Across Europe Plunge 16%, Says Study The total number of honey bee colonies across Europe plunged 16% over the winter 2017\u201318, according to COLOSS(Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes), an international, non-profit organization based in Switzerland, tasked with the goals of protecting honey bees. Allison Gray, the lead researcher on the study, sent a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26031,4318],"class_list":["post-46589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-bee-populations","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46590,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46589\/revisions\/46590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}