Virginia Honey Bees Dying

One out of every three bites of food we eat is a result of pollinators like honey bees. Did you know honey bee colonies are dying in VA at a much higher rate than the nation as a whole???

https://bip2.beeinformed.org/loss-map

Honey bees are so important that farmers often have bee hives transported and then placed on their farm to provide pollination for their crops.Have you ever heard people talking about Colony Collapse Disorder? Over the winter of 2017-2018 somewhere around 75% of my honey bee colonies died, primarily due to a parasite called nosema.

https://wtop.com/virginia/2018/07/record-honeybee-losses-in-virginia-are-nearly-twice-the-national-average/

Nosema builds up on old honeybee comb over time and eventually reaches levels that kill the bees. I have been keeping bees since 2006, so the vast majority of my comb is old and needs to be changed out. I have right around a thousand individual boxes (each hive is made up of anywhere between two to 6 boxes) and I have been removing the old comb manually from the dead hives and then I dip both the frames and boxes in boiling wax to completely sterilize everything. I have been working steadily on this project since early spring, but on June 22nd, I had a stent put in the left main artery of my heart, so now I need to hire help to finish everything ASAP. Problem is that if the work isn't completed in the next few weeks, all the old comb is getting infected with other parasites (wax moths and hive beetles) that will explode in numbers and then those will infect all my remaining live colonies...

I have set up a Go Fund Me page for those who would like to help. If you can not afford to help financially, please help by sharing and spreading the word. I will also be doing a Garden Talk at the Arlington Central Library on July 25 at 7 p.m. if you would like to learn more about helping the honey bees.