Bee researcher inducted into British order
March 24, 2014
From: AP
ATHENS, Ga. — Long past are the days in which British royalty knighted nobles for their services in battles.
Recently, though, a British ambassador inducted a University of Georgia professor into a chivalric order for his struggle to halt the demise of bees.
UGA researcher Keith Delaplane for years has studied bees and the reasons the possible reasons behind their population decline.
The entomology professor conducts that research so well it recently earned him induction into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
White-gloved British Ambassador to the United States Sir Peter Westmacott did the induction honors last month at the British embassy.
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For the past several years, he’s been one of the leaders in a global effort to solve the mystery of so-called “colony collapse disorder,” which has wiped out thousands upon thousands of honeybee hives.
Much of the world’s agriculture depends on solving that mystery, especially in the United States.
“It’s the factory pollinator for factor-scale agriculture,” Delaplane said of honeybees. “They are the only manageable pollinator at an American scale of agriculture.”
Recently, he’s been exploring commercial honeybee breeding practices and has uncovered evidence that he hopes will take bee breeding in an entirely new direction.
Breeders have been trying with limited success to select specific traits such as honey production or resistance to the Varroa mite – suspect No. 1 in colony collapse disorder.
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