Hive and Field Mortality of Honey Bees in Northern Utah Due to Effects of Certain Ecological and Chemical Factors

The honey bee is the most important pollinating insect in Utah, because various important crops such as fruits, legumes, and vegetable seed crops depend chiefly on it for pollination. In the past, honey bees have suffered repeated severe death losses through contact with arsenic and other agricultural chemicals. Recently the newer insecticides, such as DDT, chlordane, parathion, benzene hexachloride, lindane, toxaphene, and several kinds of miticides have further complicated the problem of bee survival. In addition, natural enemies such as predators and parasites and some unfavorable environmental conditions, including unfavorable temperature and humidity, wind, storm, and other changeable weather conditions, have also been causes of adult bee losses. Bees dead from natural and non-chemical conditions are here referred to as "normal mortality." In order to learn more concerning the normal mortality of bees, studies of the causes of bee losses, both in the hive and field, are necessary.