[blackdog]

As a beekeeper, the challenge of keeping your bees free of other parasitic or destructive insects, without killing your bees at the same time is brutal. And fwiw to the people who say we're all gonna die because bees are dying, the honeybee is an invasive species brought to the America's by European settlers.

just try to kill the bug inside the trachea of your bees and not kill the bee? Or the Veroa mite (tick on bee), and not kill the bee?

[fr_freak]

And fwiw to the people who say we're all gonna die because bees are dying, the honeybee is an invasive species brought to the America's by European settlers.

I did not know this. And since you seem to be the man to ask, what kind of bees were indigenous? Are they still here (and not inter-bred with honeybees)? How are those africanized bees doing?

[tlozo]

the honeybee is an invasive species brought to the America's by European settlers.

A type of honey bee existed in North America, but died off about 5 million years ago.

Fourteen-Million-Year-Old Honey Bee Discovered in America

Scientists figure that the bee, and honey bee, have been around for about 100 million years – a spin off from the wasp. Up until 2009, it was well documented that honey bees never existed in North America until the Europeans brought them over in the early 1600’s to compete with the native bee population that did not produce honey. That changed when Professor Michael Engle, a paleontologist/entomologist at the University of Kansas, and of course we must mention his hard-working team, discovered and named the fossilized remains of a female worker bee. It was unearthed in paper shale from Stewart Valley Basin, west-central Nevada. A rough dating of the find places it around mid-Miocene geological epoch (about 14 million years ago). Accordingly, apis nearctica, the newly applied name for the find, is definitely a honey bee having hairy eyes, a barbed stinger, and honey bee wing patterns. This particular bee no longer exists. Researchers say it is most similar to the extinct species apis armbrusteri zennex from the Miocene epoch (23 to 5 million years ago) of southwestern Germany. Engle figures that this particular bee became extinct some time ago stating that “honey bees were likely truly absent” from North American during the Pliocene (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago) and Pleistocene (2.6 million to 11,700 years) epochs. So basically, North America remained without honey for about five million years until a ship from England put into port at Jamestown, Virginia. Engle published his research in the May 7, 2009 edition of the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. The original fossilized female worker bee can be found at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco.

https://revolutionarywarjournal.com/honey-bees-in-early-america-white-mans-flies-fact-and-fiction/

[AAABEST]

And fwiw to the people who say we're all gonna die because bees are dying, the honeybee is an invasive species brought to the America's by European settlers.

Thank you BD. I LOVE honey bees and honey, and they actually can be good pollinators, but tired of idiots saying we're all going to die whenever their populations decline.

My fruit trees get loaded with pollinators here in Florida - but practually zero honey bees.