The Honeybee Conservancy

There are a number of important reasons why the Carmel Forest should mostly be allowed to rehabilitate itself.

According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies the temperatures across the planet between December 1, 2009, and November 30, 2010, show that 2010 ranks as the hottest year on record. And clearly after the worst-ever forest fire on Mount Carmel few Israelis would dispute the consequences of rising temperatures, prolonged droughts and intense heat waves.

European honeybee pollinating Prasium majus, Reches Etzba, Mount Carmel, Israel. CC image courtesy of Gideon Pisanty on Flickr.

It is heart-breaking for those of us who have spent many decades working in wild forests around the globe observing these magnificent and complex systems that were designed to be carbon dioxide sinks (that is to remove CO2 from the stratosphere), now becoming sources of CO2 – emitting the main rising greenhouse, temperature-trapping gas on Earth.

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This New Year marks a time when citizens around the globe celebrate the bountiful blue planet and the fruits of its earth. Yet, something just isn’t right. Worldwide we are entering into another consecutive year of hundreds of billions of dead Italian honeybees.

Is the honeybee trying to tell us something? Read the rest of this entry →

Honeybees are crucial pollinators responsible for every third bite on our dinner plate. A recent survey revealed that our humble honeybees are sicker than ever.

Honeybee deaths this year were much higher than last year.

And last year marked record-low honey production. Honey production dropped 12 percent, to 144 million pounds.

More than 50 billion honeybees have perished within the last year in the United States. Scientists call it Colony Collapse Disorder. When honeybees get sick, they will not return to the colony. Nature designed these social creatures not to infect one another when they get ill. The queen bee is the only insect left in the hive; helpless, she, too, dies quickly. Read the rest of this entry →

Dr. Reese

Each spring, during my childhood, I planted trees with my dad and my brother, and the bees always intrigued us. Last year, in late June, I finished “The Incomparable Honeybee;” I was cautiously optimistic that the overall death rate amongst honeybees was trending downward.

Just prior to the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, the overwinter and spring bee survey numbers from across our nation were released. The numbers were startling; our humble honeybees are sicker than ever. Read the rest of this entry →