American Bees

Tammy Horn has authored a book titled Bees in America How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation which traces the historic impact of bees in the United States. The book notes some poetic references to bees including this from an English folk song:

The Lord made the bees,
The bees made the honey,
The Lord made man
And Man made money.1

There is also this written by the noted American poet Emily Dickenson:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.2

Presently bees in America have become afflicted with a mysterious disease. The linked article from Week in Science alludes to this and mentions some other recent scientific discoveries related to bees.

Diseases are nothing new to bees. Like other organisms they are afflicted with their share of them. Bees in America How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation notes some imported diseases. The tracheal mite acquired its name because it afflicts the tracheal passages of bees and impedes breathing. Mating of mites actually occurs within tracheal tubes as does the parasitic feeding of mites.

Another mite, known as the varroa mite, infests royal jelly within a hive and feeds on bee larvae. It has caused more damage than the tracheal mite and came to the United States from Asia in 1987. The tracheal mite had arrived a little earlier in 1984 and came from Europe.

As bees are of great value to American agriculture and the economy, efforts to control bee diseases are extremely important. The current disease affecting American bees has not yet been identifed with certainty. Events will be noted as they unfold.



References:

1. Tammy Horn, Bees in America How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation, 102

2. Tammy Horn, Bees in America How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation, 136;
Quoted from: Emily Dickenson, The Poems of Emily Dickenson, 392.

3. Tammy Horn, Bees in America How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation, 228