Honey Bee Homicide Essay

Honey Bee Homicide

Imagine a world without colors, flowers, or even air. This is a world without bees, which at the current rate, it will not be long until this description fits our planet. The endangerment of bees has many driving factors; the principal components being the increase of parasitic mites, the decrease of careers as beekeepers, the heightened use of pesticides, and the loss of biodiversity in honey bee habitats. For instance, two invasive species of mites expanded to North America twenty years ago, varroa and tracheal mites, which are responsible for a large portion of the honeybee deaths. Varroa mites live externally on bees, killing them by feeding on their blood (Watanabe 1170). In contrast, tracheal mites use suffocation to kill honey bees. In the words of Watanabe the [research] shows parasitic tracheal mites infesting a honey bee trachea. males, which live on the bees and use their piercing-sucking mouthparts to consume their hosts' hemolymph (insect circulatory fluid). Tracheal mites kill in a

Due to the mass importing of inexpensive foreign honey sold at extremely low prices, modern-day beekeepers struggle with making a livable wage from this career field. In addition to cheap mass imports of honey, invasive species are extremely expensive to control. According to the research of Dr. Myrna E. Watanabe, becoming a beekeeper is no longer a considerable career option for many people because of the low income “Beekeepers are finding it especially difficult to be patient these days, as honey prices fall in the face of massive imports of cheap Chinese honey. Such low prices cannot sustain the cost of beekeeping, which has become more expensive because of increased costs for mite control” (Watanabe 1170). It is evident that the off-putting expenses and competition for profit are severely damaging the job market, thus damaging beehive quality as