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Honey bee health concerns on the rise as beekeepers report 1.1 million colonies lost What’s the buzz about honeybee health? Experts are reporting that the bee industry is fragile after commercial beekeepers started reporting a startling statistic. “Reports started coming in that there was an alarming amount of honeybee colony losses,” said Matthew Mulica with the Honey Bee Health Coalition. A nationwide survey from June 2024 to February 2025 revealed that over 1.1 million honeybee colonies were lost. Commercial operations report a 62% colony loss. Why? “We don’t know,” Mulica said. While the colony loss right now is a mystery, the USDA is investigating why this is happening. Until they find a solution, concerns continue to rise for pollination and agriculture. “If there aren’t enough bees to pollinate the fruits and vegetables, then the cost of the pollination services will go up, and that’s going to be a cost that will be passed on to the farmer and ultimately could be passed on to ...

Parkersburg bee population has declined due to environmental causes Bee populations across the country have declined rapidly in the past year. The national bee population has decreased by 50% in the past year. W.Va. State bee populations have decreased by 35-40% just this year. Entomologists across the country are currently trying to find a cause for the decline, however the cause remains unknown. Bob Spencer, co-owner of Bearsville Bees, said the bee population in the Mid-Ohio Valley have decreased due to multiple environmental factors. The first factor is last year’s drought. The drought affected local vegetation, which serves as a food source for the bees. Without their food source, they are not able to collect enough food to store in the hive. The second factor is the frigid temperatures from this past winter. When the temperature starts to warm up, bees venture out to go to the bathroom which keeps their hives clean. The cold temperatures kept them inside which out the bees at r...

  Western New York bee losses remain average amid nationwide decline  With warmer weather just around the corner, many beekeepers are preparing for the season ahead. While some parts of the country are making national headlines due to significant bee losses, Pat Bono, beekeeper and owner of Seaway Trail Honey, says the losses in the region have been average so far.  “I’m looking at about a 30% loss, which is about average, for beekeeping. So right now, it’s not really affecting the local beekeepers, but then that may change, in the next year because right now, most of the loss is occurring in commercial operations across the country,” Bono said. As bee populations continue to decline across the nation, many are left wondering how it’s impacting local pollinators. In Western New York, the Varroa mite poses a major threat to bee health, making it harder for hives to thrive. “Varroa mite is an invasive pest that entered the United States over 40 years ago, and every bee high...

  EU exploring weaker 2040 climate goal EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra is considering options to soften the bloc’s 2040 climate goal as he tries to contain a backlash against Europe’s climate ambitions. The European Commission, the EU’s executive, is expected to propose legislation in the coming weeks to adopt a previously announced target to cut 90 percent of greenhouse gas pollution by 2040. But to allay political concerns about the effort’s cost to heavy industry and agriculture, Hoekstra is weighing “flexibilities” for reaching that goal, according to a Commission official and two people briefed on the discussions, granted anonymity to reveal details of confidential deliberations. The options being discussed range from allowing countries to defer steeper cuts to letting them count carbon reductions they pay for in other countries. Another idea would be to lean more on carbon that forests or technology can remove from the air.  For EU officials, the approach is a wa...

  Trump Wants to Convince the World That Climate Change Is a Good Thing Windmills cause cancer. They’re killing birds and whales. Electric vehicles don’t work. Have you heard about the electric sharks?  Climate change   is a hoax . There are many things  Donald Trump  has said about climate change and renewable energy that are difficult to make sense of, but Trump’s newest line on climate change is both dumbfounding and truly dangerous: He is now determined to convince the world that climate change is a good thing. Trump has certainly downplayed the effects of climate change in the past. He’s claimed rising sea levels will create more beachfront property, which would seem to be a  misunderstanding  of how land works. He’s  talked  about how people would actually be happy if it was a little warmer outside. Even Trump adviser Elon Musk, who runs an EV company, has  downplayed  the threat of climate change in recent months.  Now, ...

  Big Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic Warming Top Wall Street institutions are preparing for a severe future of global warming that blows past the temperature limits agreed to by more than 190 nations a decade ago, industry documents show. The big banks' acknowledgment that the world is likely to fail at preventing warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels is spelled out in obscure reports for clients, investors and trade association members. Most were published after the reelection of President Donald Trump, who is seeking to repeal federal policies that support clean energy while  turbocharging the production of oil, gas and coal  — the main sources of global warming. The recent reports — from Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Finance — show that Wall Street has determined the temperature goal is effectively dead and describe how top financial institutions plan to continue operating profitably as temperature...

  Reconsidering Sovereignty Amid the Climate Crisis The current international order is based on the presumption that our physical geography is fixed and unchanging. However, climate change—in the form of sea level rise and inundation—is shifting international boundaries. The world’s changing geography will force policymakers and legal experts to adapt the concepts of sovereignty, statehood, and citizenship to address the new global environment. This paper focuses its discussion of climate impacts and response policies on the Pacific islands. The changes befalling low-lying islands, like those in the Pacific, are a harbinger of the future that awaits the residents of coastal cities and shorelines on larger land bodies. 1  Islands’ experiences of climate change offer insights into the shortcomings of the existing international system and demonstrate the fundamental tension between sovereignty and climate change. Ultimately, the Pacific region serves as an important case study an...