Wild Bees Gone, Hawaiʻi Farms Now Need Beekeepers
Three Hawaiʻi Island beekeepers answer a moderator's questions and the room's: the state apiarist Danielle Downey, treatment-free beekeeper Jen Rasmussen of Paradise Nectar Apiary, and Jenny Bach, who does hive removals and works in school gardens. They cover how the varroa mite (2008 on the Big Island) and small hive beetle (2010) wiped out most wild colonies, what that means for farmers who used to get free pollination, pesticide residues in hives, fire-ant baits, and what natural farming might do for bees. Nobody on the panel had data on natural farming and bees; one beekeeper had tried a lactic-acid brew of dead beetles as a repellent.
Found Varroa reached Oʻahu in 2007 and the Big Island in 2008