Isle of Man government in Bid to Revive Declining UK Bee Colonies
In an extraordinary endeavour to save the honey bees, the Manx Government are going to post queen bees to the UK.To help boost the declining hive populations, queen bees will be mailed to the UK in ventilated envelopes.
Manx government bee disease officer and inspector, Harry Owens said: "Our bees are among the healthiest in the world and it would be nice to see if they could take over diseased colonies."
If successful, it is possible that the Isle of Man may export healthy bees as a commercial venture, he said.
Small matchbox-sized cages that would contain a single queen and up to five mating drones would be sent individually to UK keepers in Birmingham and Stockport. The same would be sent to revive the bee hives which are affected by debilitating viruses.
"The keeper will take out and kill the existing queen and put the cage, which contains a bit of icing sugar, in the hive.
"The diseased worker bees will eat through the icing to release the queen, by which time they will have accepted her as their own," said Mr Owens.
The queen's and drones' healthy offspring will then repopulate the hive over a 46-day period as the last of the diseased bees die off, said Mr Owens.
Hopefully, the queens will replace the infected ones and gradually spawn new colonies.
As we know, the honey bees play a crutial role in pollinating crops, ecologists and UK agriculturalist, alarmed by the decline of the bees are hopeful this could help reverse the declining numbers.
