{"id":59099,"date":"2025-08-10T12:26:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T12:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/59099\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T12:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T12:26:05","slug":"honey-bee-hives-at-threat-from-deadly-parasites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/59099\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey bee hives at threat from deadly parasites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A beekeeper has said it is more difficult to keep his hives alive because of the growing threat of deadly parasites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">William Robson, who runs Chain Bridge Honey Farm in Berwick, Northumberland, said he had lost more colonies than ever before, with one of the causes being varroa mites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The mites are tiny parasites which attack bees, spread viruses and can destroy a colony within two to three years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mr Robson said he and other commercial beekeepers regularly treated their hives for varroa but the pests keep &#8220;coming back with a vengeance&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Growing up, if you had 30 hives of bees, in two years time you&#8217;d have 50 hives because they were going that well,&#8221; he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/live\/bbc_radio_newcastle?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:BBC Radio Newcastle;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">BBC Radio Newcastle<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Now, if you had 30 hives of bees, if you weren&#8217;t very careful, you&#8217;d be down to 20.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said the infestation could mean queen honey bees, which usually lived between four and five years, often did not last 18 months.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A row of eight wooden hive boxes placed next to a stone wall. The boxes sit among green grass. Yellow flowers can be seen in the foreground, which are growing on a bush.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/shuYg4UPiHXqp1Ninb8I6Q--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/c86cfe25f61039a622c6b416bd67fb32\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mr Robson said it is much harder to keep his hives alive due to the tough conditions bees face [Chain Bridge Honey Farm]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Weather can also play a deciding factor in the health of a colony and heavy rain, such as was experienced last year, can make it more difficult for struggling hives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The increased use of pesticides is also another factor which can kill bees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But Mr Robson said there could still be a future for beekeepers if people continued to support small businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;There&#8217;s demand,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve got a lot of loyalty from the public and a lot of loyalty from the shopkeepers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC North East on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCNEandCumbria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bbcnortheast\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bbc.in\/3yyMYUI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Nextdoor;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Nextdoor<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcneandcumbria\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More stories<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A beekeeper has said it is more difficult to keep his hives alive because of the growing threat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,17419,38879,66,38878,38877],"class_list":["post-59099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hives","tag-mr-robson","tag-science","tag-varroa-mites","tag-william-robson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}