There are plenty of barriers to entry whether you are talking about the business side of things or the down in the trenches fieldwork. From new diseases, new pesticides, a hostile environment, etc. Beekeeping is not for the faint of heart. whoops url comming soon :P

UPDATE: Users all agree... Varroa. Thanks for the feedback. This fall, I had three hives. Two of them seemed strong, but I was keeping a close eye on the 3rd as it was a caught swarm. I noticed that the 3rd hive was being robbed by yellow jackets. The wasps were trying with various...

I've been trying to find evidence that honey bees can pick up pyrethroids that might be dried onto leaf surfaces. Information is needed for a blog post I'm working on about mosquito-control companies (I'm not a fan). I'm wondering whether the pyrethroids might get onto bees in the early part of...

I had a deadout of one of my 5 hives. A couple of days ago I noticed dead bees on the landing board and on the ground in front of the hive. Today I was finally able to get in. Opening the top, there were a lot of bees on top of the inner cover, when I tipped it many fell off. Going into the...

Happy Spring! It’s that time of year when the birds are singing, the bees are buzzing … and the pesticides are being sprayed? Many counties, cities, and municipalities spray for pest management (particularly mosquitos) around the beginning of summer. But, as we have discussed in length here at...

http://phys.org/news/2016-03-pesticides-poisoned-honeybees.html

I was looking up grasshoppers this morning because my garden is infested with them. I've had to grow everything under nets just to stand a chance this season and I was just curious about how others handle grasshoppers since I do things the organic way. I stumbled upon this website (below)...

Reminder: I am a newbie. I have bees now since May 2. They look out onto a field of corn. I spoke with the spraying service this week from Southern States. He informed me that the owner would probably spray pesticides and I should be concerned about the overspray. Well that makes sense...

"The formulation makes the honey bee poison" Formulation/ adjuvant toxicity abstract http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048357514002533 Christopher A. Mullin, Jing Chen, Julia D. Fine, Maryann T. Frazier, James L. Frazier, The formulation makes the honey bee poison, Pesticide...

This week we are honored to talk to Tom Theobald. Tom is an advocate for the bees and has been involved in the campaign to save the bees in America. He is passionate about saving the bees and getting government regulators to ban dangerous pesticides. You can listen to the show here:- Tom...

Good article; http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=5fd2b1aa990e63193af2a573d&id=d4b108ce16&e=d8f43e9c20 “Neonicotinoids are important for control of many significant agricultural and veterinary pests,” team captain Mohammad-Amir Aghaee said at the onset. “Part of the solution is to develop...

From Dr. Mark Winston at Simon Fraser in Vancouver, BC, Canada: http://tinyurl.com/pfgbqev His research showed that yields of canola (and profits) were increased when there was a deliberate (large-- ~1/3) portion of farmland that was not cropland--but left fallow. The differences in dollars...

Evaluation of the Distribution and Impacts of Parasites, Pathogens, and Pesticides on Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Populations in East Africa In East Africa, honey bees (Apis mellifera) provide critical pollination services and income for small-holder farmers and rural families. While honey bee...

Xenobiotic Effects on Intestinal Stem Cell Proliferation in Adult Honey Bee (Apis mellifera L) Workers The causes of the current global decline in honey bee health are unknown. One major group of hypotheses invokes the pesticides and other xenobiotics to which this important pollinator species...

From Catch the buzz today. You will note that none of these are neonics! Miticides, Ag Chems and Inert Ingredients A Deadly Mix In A Beehive. Alan Harman Disturbing new research finds four pesticides commonly used to kill mites, insects and fungi – fluvalinate, coumaphos, chlorothalonil and...

I have personally witnessed a very large die off of my honey bees. They engaged in a death spin turning round and round on the ground at the hive entrance as if you could hear them crying in pain and torment and as if poisoned. If insecticides were banned would honey bees thrive again as they...

http://news.yahoo.com/return-long-absent-bumblebee-near-seattle-stirs-scientific-120655098.html Bombus occidentalis vanished from western Washington in the early-mid 1990's - before the neonicotinoid insecticides were even available - but has recently reappeared in the Seattle area, in spite of...

From: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/06/25000_bubblebees_killed_droppi.html#/0 An estimated 25,000 bumblebees have been found dead in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville since Saturday, the largest known incident of bumblebee deaths in the United States, according to the...

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/declining_bee_populations_pose_a_threat_to_global_agriculture/2645/ Declining Bee Populations Pose A Threat to Global Agriculture The danger that the decline of bees and other pollinators represents to the world’s food supply was highlighted this week when the...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-banned-europe A bee collects pollen from a sunflower in Utrecht, the Netherlands. EU states have voted in favour of a proposal to restrict the use of pesticides linked to serious harm in bees. Europe will enforce the...