Bees (for Ken)

[Woolly Bugger]

Half a million honeybees dead in suspected poisoning at Army veteran's farm


The Virginia farm's owner estimates that the damage could total almost $20,000, and says that it was a premeditated attack.

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A Stafford County sheriff's deputy photographs bee hives Monday at Rock Hill Honey Bee Farms. (Jerry Mattiaccio)

When Jerry Mattiaccio noticed the thick steel chains and padlock wrapped around the gate of his Virginia bee farm last Sunday afternoon, he suspected he had aggravated some neighbors. Not everyone loves living in the shadow of more than a thousand bee colonies, he thought.

He tried to cut open the lock on his own, but it proved too thick. When his staff arrived the next morning to help him slice through the chains, they realized this was no harmless prank.

"It was sabotage," Mattiaccio said.

His eyes trained on the ground, Mattiaccio, 62, walked through the gate looking for footprints left by a trespasser. Instead, he found dead bees carpeting the grass, the thrumming buzz of his 5-acre property dampened by the death of not hundreds but thousands of Italian honey bees. Worst of all, he said, their tongues were sticking out — a clear sign of pesticide poisoning.

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[greg]

A few years ago at the cataloochie gathering Ken gave me a jar of honey. I came home and put in cabinet and forgot about it until a week or so ago when I came across it. I opened it today and it was some of the best honey I have had. Thanks you so much Ken.

[trout-r-us]

"From June 2024 to February 2025, the United States suffered its worst commercial honeybee crash on record. An estimated 62 percent of commercial colonies perished, according to a survey by the nonprofit Project Apis m.

The USDA has long been the country's frontline response to honeybee die-offs, using its labs to characterize threats to the insects.
But this year, before the researchers could uncover what exactly had killed the bees, the Trump administration's sweeping federal funding cuts scrambled the operation."

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/05/honeybee-trump-research-disaster/682858/

[Onslow]

Humans prefer three meals a day. Bees need meals too. Biodiversity matters because bees need meals.  If a human was given a semi load of fresh peaches, and told that's sufficient for a year, it wouldn't end well. Just a handful of nectar producing varieties doesn't cut it.  Huge gaps in nectar flow were created due to Chestnut blight in this part of the world, the eradication of sumac, diminished black gum, locust, persimmon tree populations. These all bloom at different times and are necessary to keep the nectar hopper flowing.

[Onslow]

https://www.sciU.S. beekeepers had a disastrous winter. Between June 2024 and January 2025, a full 62% of commercial honey bee colonies in the United States died, according to an extensive survey. It was the largest die-off on record, coming on the heels of a 55% die-off the previous winter.

As soon as scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) caught wind of the record-breaking die-offs, they sprang into action—but their efforts were slowed by a series of federal funding cuts and layoffs by President Donald Trump's administration. Now, 6 months later, USDA scientists have finally identified a culprit.

According to a preprint posted to the bioRxiv server this month, nearly all the dead colonies tested positive for bee viruses spread by parasitic mites. Alarmingly, every single one of the mites the researchers screened was resistant to amitraz, the only viable mite-specific pesticide—or miticide—of its kind left in humans' arsenal.

"There is a lot at stake," says Danielle Downey, the executive director of Project Apis m., the nonprofit that conducted the bee die-off survey. USDA did not provide comment on its research to Science after multiple inquiries spanning nearly 3 weeks, with one spokesperson citing a need "to move [the request] through agency clearance."

Miticide-resistant varroa mites have been a growing issue for beekeepers for years, so much so that breeders have sought to develop mite-resistant bee varieties. Since the 1980s, the parasites have evolved global resistance to at least four major classes of miticide. Unfortunately, effective new compounds are notoriously difficult to develop, and amitraz represented one of the best remaining treatments. But the preprint suggests amitraz could soon fall by the wayside.



The study's findings are "concerning," says Aaron Gross, a toxicologist at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Even a miticide like amitraz, widely considered one of the least toxic options to humans and bees alike, can weaken colonies when applied in high doses, says Gross, an expert in arthropod pesticide resistance who was not involved with the new work. Losing amitraz could be a major blow to beekeepers' toolbox, he says, as many other miticides are either harsher or less effective. "You not only have to worry about killing the mite itself; you [also] don't want to damage the honey bee."

USDA researchers identified the mites, and their resistance to amitraz, by combing over dead honey bee colonies in forensic detail. A team led by Jay Evans and Zachary Lamas, both bee researchers at USDA's Bee Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, collected dead bees from 113 affected colonies from across the U.S., as well as samples of wax, pollen, honey, and—when possible—any parasites. The samples were taken to national bee labs in Beltsville and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where researchers extracted DNA and RNA and analyzed it for snippets of viral or bacterial genetic material. They also sequenced DNA from the recovered varroa mites and looked for genes related to miticide resistance.

Matthew Mulica of the Keystone Policy Center, which leads a coalition focused on honey bee health, points out that although mite-borne viruses probably dealt many colonies a killing blow, other factors such as pesticide exposure or inadequate nutrition could have made bees more susceptible to disease. In the coming weeks, USDA is expected to publish an analysis of pesticide residues found in the dead colonies. But according to Mulica, this initial report still serves as a strong initial diagnosis. "It's a good thing that this study came out and found something we could point to."

As miticides lose their potency, researchers are trying to develop ways of attacking honey bee viruses directly, rather than focusing on controlling varroa mites. The mites' main threat to bees is spreading single-strand RNA viruses. In principle, a technique called RNA interference could yield treatments that trigger immune responses in bees and protect them against the viruses. But such treatments are still years away from being deployed outside the lab, and Mulica adds that no existing antivirals target these viruses.

So for the time being, organizations such as Project Apis m. are advising beekeepers to take an all-of-the-above approach to controlling varroa mites. These measures include rotating through nonamitraz miticides, sterilizing equipment with alcohol or fire, and isolating ailing colonies to prevent mites from spreading.

For some beekeepers, however, news of the mites and their resistance to amitraz may have come too late. The preprint was released near the end of U.S. beekeepers' annual rebuilding window. After the start of summer, it gets harder for them to fully restock their colonies, especially if they haven't treated their hives for the right issues. Though beekeepers have been working hard to prepare for next year, Downey says many will have to move forward with fewer colonies than they're used to.

Honey bee colonies can recover from one or two tough years, but too many population crashes in a row could spell disaster—which means beekeepers will need organizations such as USDA fully funded and firing on all cylinders, Downey adds. "With the right will and resources, there are tangible efforts that could prevent this happening again," she says. "The USDA and university labs are key components."ence.org/content/article/scientists-identify-culprit-behind-biggest-ever-u-s-honeybee-die

Back around 2005-2006, a very shrewd contributor to the American bee journal made the assertion that widely accepted protocols for mite treatment was a formula for virulent  mite rearing through selective breeding. Randy Oliver's assertions made sense.  After witnessing mites becoming resistant to coumaphos in a couple years, and after having every queen bee in my bee yard die from other new thymol-based treatments, I quit treating my bees, zero treatments, zero feeding.  The plan to create a pool of survivor stock. This worked fine until last year when I had to replace several queens with commercially raised queens due to temperament issues. All of the commercially raised queens died in Sept/Oct, and there is no recovery when queens die that late in the season.  I'm down to two viable hives, and only one with survivor stock. In light of the current circumstances, I should've kept my mean bees.

The industry will never learn or cannot change its bad habits due to the demands.  The whole pollination industry and the industry it supports is at risk of imminent implosion imo. Industrial scale food production has some serious risk, and is why I'm compelled to labor in the garden growing my own goodies.

[troutboy_II]

Really interesting. Thanks for sharing. Pretty concerning too.

TB

[Onslow]

Some good news...

Randy Oliver is still working his no-intervention operation AND is still in the almond pollination business. This proves a beekeeper can be successful without treating if they are determined and smart. I just ordered a couple queens from him.  All of his bees are survivor stock.