Florida Cops Brake for Bees

A recent roadblock set up by police in DeFuniak Springs is creating quite a buzz.

It wasn’t set up to catch a criminal or take impaired drivers off the road. Rather, it was put into motion to protect a swarm of honey bees that placed themselves smack dead in the middle of Railroad Avenue.

“Apparently they were migrating to a new location and picked the hot asphalt to be their temporary holding spot,” DeFuniak police wrote on their Facebook page. “ A bee keeper responded and was able to safely harvest the bees into a specially designed box.”

Concerns about America’s honey bee population have been on the rise in recent years as the number of healthy colonies declines.

“Colony losses from CCD are a very serious problem for beekeepers,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture website states. “Annual losses from the winter of 2006-2011 averaged about 33 percent each year, with a third of these losses attributed to CCD by beekeepers.”

The causes of CDC remain largely a mystery. What is known, however, is that the honey bee population has been dying out in vast numbers due to it. The implications of such losses are being felt in the agricultural industry where honey bees are often crucial for pollenating crops, such as berries, fruits and vegetables. California’s almond growers, for example, “require the use of 1.4 million colonies of honey bees, approximately 60 percent of all managed honey bee colonies in the United States,” the website states.

For more information about the honey bee population in the United States and the perils it faces, visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture online.