The Plight of Honey Bee & UGA Honey Bee Program

By Rose Scott

Atlanta, GA – Keith Delaplane is more than just a UGA professor.
He's a bee scientist and he says the honey bee has been in danger for a while.
The threat goes back to the 1940s.
But now, he says there's hope because it is known that parasites maybe the reason for the dwindling population.

The next phase is finding a way to kill those parasites without harming the bees.
Just how crucial is the survival of the honeybee, Delaplane says just ask Georgia farmers.
Georgia depends on the honey bee to pollinate certain crops, such as apples, watermelons, pumpkins and blueberries.
Without the natural pollination of the honey bees, farmers then have to come out of pocket and pay rental fees for bee keepers to bring their hives to the crops.

While researchers work in the labs.. Professor Delaplane says there's also the possibility that the decline of the honey bee will turn around on its own it's happen before with the Cape honey bee found in South Africa.