Managed Bees Make Diseases Within Bee Populations Much Worse

There are “wild” bees and “managed” bees. Wild bees are, of course, the bees that dwell entirely outdoors and without being pestered by human intervention. Managed bees are bees that are bred through human manipulation and are meant to be shipped to bee deprived areas around the globe. It sounds like this is a good thing, after all there have been plenty of news stories telling about the possible devastation that could result if the worldwide bee populations continue to decline as they have been for the past half decade. However, there are always problems with every solution, and unfortunately the use of managed bees could be defeating the purpose of managed bees.

An entomologist from the University of California at Riverside has determined, after years of large scale studies, that managed bees are spreading diseases to wild bees. This means that instead of the managed bees kickstarting the reproductive activity of bees dwelling in particularly bee-free regions, the managed bees are actually doing the opposite by killing even more bees by mixing with their population and spreading disease. Bees are sure unlucky these days.

Had you ever heard about the use of managed bees before reading this article? If so, did you anticipate potential problems with the use of managed bees? What type of problems did you anticipate?