[jly]

There are very many backyard beekeepers, even in urban areas. I have a pair of hives on my small city lot and most neighbors don't even know. This isn't uncommon these days.

Having said that, there are wild bees, and bees 'escape' from beekeepers by swarming and forming new hives on their own. They try to reproduce by creating new hives as frequently as they can.

[tptacek]

I guess my question would be, why should I care about isolated feral honey bee colonies? They're not a native species; they don't "belong" here. As long as beekeepers can cost-effectively maintain their pollination capabilities (perhaps at marginally higher cost), what's the public policy implication of CCD?

[lostlogin]

Poison builds up in comb and honey from the agents required to treat mites. It's making beekeeping harder, and the relationship between bee keepers harder (e.g. People treat diseases out of sync with each other, messing up the treatment process as bees drift to each others hives, spreading disease). Pollination as a service is expensive and lastly, it's a bit sad walking past a feral colony that's been there many years and seeing it dead.

[tptacek]

But this isn't unknowable. The prices for pollination are basically public, as are the prices for precursors of bee colonies. If beekeeping is getting untenably expensive, that should be reflected in both those prices. Why isn't it?

[lostlogin]

Here in NZ, Manuka honey. It commands a serious price and is what everyone is after. Last season bordered on disastrous due to the weather but the aim of the big players is to get Manuka. If you haven't heard of it I'm not surprised - it's a dark, not particularly nice honey that has some pretty amazing anti-bacterial properties. It's being used in all sorts of things, cosmetics, medications, dressings, foods etc.

[tptacek]

If CCD is causing a real economic problem in the US, we should see its impact in the prices of pollination services and in the cost of colony precursors. Do we?

[lostlogin]

Good question. We see it here in the price of hives and nuc colonies. It's gone up as they take more effort to build and maintain.