Beekeeping in United States
From Beekeeping Wiki
In America, beekeeping dates back to the early colonial period when British settlers first brought honey bees to the Colonies. In the 19th century bees reached the far west, carried in wagons by settlers. Most families were self-supporting, they owned their own livestock and produced their own food. The honey bees were for a multitude of uses in everyday life.
The scientific name for the dark European honey bee is Apis mellifera, but in the colonial times it was commonly known as the German bee to the American settlers, being called White Man’s Fly by native americans.
[edit] Number of hives of bees
In 1990 USA had 4.3 million hives [1], and except for an incerease during the Second World War, the number had been fairly static for nearly a century. It was 4.1 million in 1899.
[edit] Honey yield per hive
The annual yeald per hive had not increased much in the last decades, in spite of the improved hive management and it was of 14 kg in 1984. One of the reasons for the lack of increase include the large-scale mechanized agricultural methods which result in loss of bee forage, and pest control methods inimical to bees.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Eva Crane, Bees and beekeeping, 1990
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