John Carr - Managing Bee Health: A Practical Guide for Beekeepers

Writing a book is never achieved without considerable help from friends and colleagues. I would like to acknowledge the help of Professor C. L. Scudamore, Royal Veterinary College London and Iain MacMillan, Glasgow University, Dr Ke-Jein Chen, the staff at the Animal Technology Research Institute Taiwan in particular Professor Shih Ping Chen and Dr Chuan Hsing Chang for the preparation of the stained bee sections.

To the Nakasongola Apiculture Training Centre, Gulu Road, Nakasongola, Uganda for their very generous help with their bees; they could not do enough to help me with this and other projects. If any enthusiast is passing please call in and visit the institute.

To Jakob Hoffer, Starlite Colony, Manitoba for lending me a hand during the making of this book.

To Howells Veterinary Services and the North Park Veterinary Group.

To Sunjin Korea and the Philippines for allowing me to work with their hives.

To Dan Martin, DPI Victoria, Australia who showed me some of Australias extensive biosecurity preparations to protect their bee (farmed and native) populations.

To Alice, our queen for allowing me to take numerous photographs of her and her subjects.

To Cath Fraser MRCVS who provided critical comment when required.

To all the staff at 5M who have helped put this book together.

Thanks to Linda for putting up with me over the years.

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Apart from providing mankind with honey and a whole host of products, the crops that we rely on are pollinated by bees to provide us food. In parts of the world, bee pupae may also be harvested as a food source.

Figure 1.1 Honey bees working almond blossom

The annual almond crop in the USA alone requires 1.3 to 1.5 million hives thats 200,000 million bees!

Honey bees have been introduced around the world, most notably in North America and Australia, and they have become vital to our food source.

They also aid in providing us the beauty of our flowering gardens.

Native Americans knew that the Europeans were coming when they started seeing Apis mellifera on flowers. They called our majestic bee white mans flies.

Bees are farmed around the world and their products are used on a worldwide basis. With the changing world of economics and globalisation there has been a similar change in honey production around the world over time. As countries develop so will their honey production.