As Bee Population Collapses, US Apiarists Fear Research Cuts

Baker (United States) (AFP) – In a lot behind a disused West Virginia gas station at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, Roy Funkhouser is surrounded by about a dozen beekeepers and countless buzzing bees.

This club of apiarists — ranging from hobbyists to full-time commercial bee farmers — gathers regularly to learn new skills and discuss tricky problems, not least the parasitic varroa mites that plague their hives.

But the group — and beekeepers across the country — face a new challenge: The government’s closure of a key research facility, home to the nation’s oldest bee lab that has been at the vanguard of research into bee ills for over a century.

Funkhouser, a veteran commercial beekeeper, should have around 1,200 hives under his care. This year, he’s sitting on less than 200.

“It’s a real struggle,” Funkhouser told AFP. “The parasites that we’ve got now, the mites and everything — more viruses and more pesticide exposures, more chemical exposures — everything is just more of a struggle today than what it was in the past.”