Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Chinese Beekeepers Facing Unknown Menace

Mystery Bee Deaths Puzzling Guangdong
China Internet Information Center, 11/3/2008

Beekeepers in Shixing County in southern China's Guangdong Province are facing an unknown menace that is threatening to wipe out their bees and their livelihoods.

At the start of this year Lu Chunguang had 40 hives and about 2.4 million honeybees. But in early July he noticed something strange. "Every morning, at about eight, the bees would fly out of their hives. Some of the bees wobbled, then circled around and dropped dead," said the farmer who has lost ten hives and almost a quarter of his bees in the last three months. "The abdomens of the dead bees were stiff and swollen."…

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