h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Recently some intelligent and well informed people have informed me, off the cuff, that bees are being wiped out by some kind of mite and are likely to be extinct in the next decade....

So - if this is true, why haven't I been officially told so that I can start hoarding honey? If its not true, where did they get this stuff from?

I think it is only some species of bee. For the UK it is the bumblebee whose numbers are falling dramatically I havn't heard anything about honeybees.
BCNU - Crescent

There are major problems with mite infestations in honey bee colonies in the UK.
I don't know the details but I gather that the mite accidentally imported from the continent and is spreading north up the country.

There are major problems with mite infestations in honey bee colonies in the UK.
I don't know the details but I gather that the mite accidentally imported from the continent and is spreading north up the country.

This is very sad - I love bees. Has any one read the children's book 'A swarm in May'?

Here is my favourite bee joke:

I was stung by a bee yesterday - £20 for a jar of honey.

hee, very droll
BCNU - Crescent

It gave me a buzz, anyway

Oh you are all so kind

Eddie Izzard does a brilliant thing bees.

Well, we humans are probably a bigger threat to bees than those mites.

You're right about the honey bees. I live in Yorkshire and, two years ago, we noticed that there were virtually no honey bees visiting the garden. This year, I have seen just one. Plenty of bumble bees, though.

My neighbour went to the Lake District last year and brought me back a jar of honey with a cute 'cottagey' label. When I looked closely, however, it was a 'blend of honeys from different European countries'.

Let's hope that this event follows the pattern of the flatworm. This is another import to the UK which has the unattractive habit of killing earthworms. Apparently, areas initially blighted by this pest are now recovering because flatworms can't survive once all the earthworms have gone. Once the population dies off, earthworms slowly re-colonise the area

I read an article in the RSPB 'Birds' magazine a while ago. I don't have the article any more, but from what I can recall Britain used to have 21 different species of bee. Of these, 5 are extinct or on the verge of extinction and at least 7 more are endangered. It's not just mites, though. Man has done a lot to destroy habitats, and gardens are no longer planted with the plants they love.

If you want to attract bees, plant things like clover and lavender. There are other plants they like but, as I said, I no longer have the article and I can't remember them.

Ah - the "predator-prey" simulation, bane of my first year at university . Of course, it only works if the bees are the sole prey of the mite, not the prefered prey - otherwise the mite population can be sustained by its less favourite prey whilst decimating the bees.

Either way, I'm having a honey sandwich for lunch - you never know when I might get the chance again

I wonder if it's the same little mite turned up here in New Zealand a month or two ago? Well, it's been here a bit longer but that was when it hit national headlines threatening exports of honey and bee-related merchandise. The problem seems to be contained at the moment.

And BTW Eddie Izzard's honeybee routine *is* very funny.

"Bees make honey!!! How do they do that?!? Do spiders make gravy? Do earwigs make chutney?"

You are right.

The name of the villain is 'varroa' a small red mite that [I seem to recall] eats the bee larvae in the nest. This obviously in time will kill the hive. I'm sure there are websites that will cover this.

.. picture at
[Broken link removed by Moderator]

MAFF statement at:-
http://www.maff.gov.uk/hort/bees.htm
...which declares "A Statutory Infected Area (SIA) for varroa has been declared which covers the whole of England and Wales and the entire area of mainland Scotland with the exception of Argyll."

Quick summary at:-
http://hometown.aol.com/pollinator/varroa.htm


I used to live in a house with a large flat roof and we had a swarm of bees living in the cavity between the roofing layers. It was like having a large pet in the family. We'd get all romantic and lovey dovey [like people do about kittens] when they swarmed which was generally once a year. A local bee-keeper used to come and take the swarm and he's the guy who told us about varroa.

[Incidentally, we sold the house but the new owners instructed us to kill the bees before we left - you should have heard the noise; it was horrible - like having a pet put down, but having to listen. We cried.]

I'd recommend honey bees as house mates - no problems with houe training or kids and your garden looks wonderful every year. Seemed to keep the wasps away as well - always a good thing in my book.

And while honeybees are dying in their hives in the UK, Africanized killer bees have spread all over the North American continent. Why is it never the useless or harmful animals that are selected for extinction?

Tell that to the dodo ...

Define 'useless' and 'harmful'! No animal is 'harmful', except to mankind and their engineered environment. Even the disease-bearing critters have their place in the scheme of things; a brake on the human population getting too large, for example. As for 'useless', all animals are 'useless', except the domesticated ones. When it comes to mites and 'alien' bees killing off our hives, and flatworms killing off our earthworms, the culprits wouldn't have got there if man wasn't shipping so much stuff round the world!

Maybe we have been. (where do you get those little yellow smilers?)

Sorry, haven't quite got the hang of this. I mean, maybe we have been selected for extinction.

I've just stumbled across this forum, and it's settled something that's been worrying me since spring.

I have a tiny garden, but there are lots of flowering shrubs and wildflowers in it. I remember last year lying on a lounger drinking a beer and watching three different kinds of bee amicably sharing the same clump of blossoms. This year there's just one kind, and the actual numbers have plummeted.

Incidentally, I've not seen any wasps. Does this mite go for them, too? (As I understand it, wasps and bees share a common ancestor.)

I don't see how we can have been scheduled for extinction. Human beings are too nasty and useless to ever be singled out for that honour.