[Pollinator] Feral Honeybee Health?

[Stephanie Parreira]

Hi Peter,

I think very little is known about feral bee health. During some public
education events about bees, I have encountered a few landowners who have
told me that they have large feral colonies near their property (several in
old barns) that have been there a long time and seem to be prospering,
despite the common assumption that because feral colonies are not treated
for *Varroa *mites, they would be more likely to fail. In this case, the
reason for that might be that those colonies are not near any large
apiaries or managed colonies that may be able to transfer mites or diseases
to the feral hive. But all in all, no one has surveyed how many feral
colonies are present in the United States or compared their rates of
failure to the failure of managed colonies. (If anyone knows of existing
literature that does examine these things, please point me in that
direction.)

Stephanie Parreira

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 5:49 PM, Peter Bernhardt <bernhap2 at slu.edu> wrote:

> This afternoon Dr Peter Wyse Jackson, Director of the Missouri Botanical
> Garden, asked a most important question I could not answer.  What is known
> about the health of feral, naturalize Apis mellifera vs. industrial hives
> or even home hives?  Do these feral colonies suffer from the same level of
> Colony Collapse Disorder and Varroa?  If you have pertinent literature on
> this topic please forward it to Dr Wyse Jackson.
>
> Sincerely,
> Peter Bernhardt, Prof. of Biology
> Saint Louis University
>
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