1 oktober 2014

Honey bees in danger


Another insect related post, but a very different one than yesterday. Since a few weeks prohibitory signs like these suddenly appeared. They have to do with 'American Foulbrood' ('Amerikaans Vuilbroed' in Dutch), which is the most serious disease for honey bees and caused by a spore-forming bacteria, specific to honey bees. The disease is highly contagious (fortunately people can not be infected!) and it will weaken and in most cases kill a honey bee colony.
To prevent the disease from spreading further, it is now forbidden to transport bees in an area several km around the spot where the disease has been discovered. This picture was taken in the town of Stadskanaal, but they can be found in a larger area in the north of the Netherlands...

Linking to signs, signs.


8 opmerkingen:

  1. Honey bee colony collapse disorder is the term they use here. Soon there will be no bees to pollinate the food we eat. Tom The Backroads Traveller

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  2. 'Until 1906 American foulbrood was not differentiated from European foulbrood, and the condition was generally referred to as foulbrood. Thereafter, the terms European and American were used to distinguish the diseases. However the designations do not refer to the geographical distributions but to the areas where they were first investigated scientifically."-- Glad to read that! :-)

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  3. It's a serious issue. Glad to see something being done to help curtail this problem.

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  4. It's a huge problem, and we need to do all we can for these bees, or it'll come back to haunt us.

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  5. Honey bees and bees in general are very important in the balance.

    My SIGNS, SIGNS

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  6. Daar hoor je dus niets over in de pers hier, wel ebola. Toch raar.

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  7. I'm so sorry ... I know honeybees are in danger here (and it sounds like the disease has traveled from here to your country). I hope this prevents it from spreading even more; it is so frightening to think of losing these vital insects

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Don't be shy and leave a comment. I'd love to read what you think!