Eye Of The Swarm: Experts Take Sting Out Of Urban Beekeeping

Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Aug, 2019 ) :When others flee in terror, they head into danger. They are the Swarm Squad, Washington's best, last and only line of defense against a rise in swarms blamed in part on urban beekeeping.

With populations in decline across the planet, environmentalists are especially worried about the fate of the honeybee, an insect that pollinates 70 out of the top 100 human food crops.

But as city dwellers flock to join the growing urban apiary movement, installing hives on their rooftops and in gardens, Washington has been coping with the opposite problem.

"A swarm of bees... really looks like a biblical event," said 53-year-old Del Voss, one of about 100 amateur beekeepers in Washington.

"It can really be terrifying for somebody."In 1947, there were about six million US honeybee hives but the figure dropped to 2.4 million in the following 60 years, thanks to pesticides, habitat destruction and other manmade threats, as well as parasitic mites.

Apiarists have been leading the fightback, but the relocation of populations into cities has turned swarms from a strictly rural phenomenom into an alarming urban problem.