SBS: Documentary – Honeybee Blues

Honeybee Blues tells the story of the world’s disappearing honeybees and the efforts of Australian scientist Dr Denis Anderson to save them from annihilation…

The European honeybee, or Apis mellifera, is used for commercial honey production and by a global pollination industry worth up to $100 billion. Without it we would lose a third of the world’s food supply.

But honeybees are under threat from all directions. Industrial agriculture and habitat destruction have taken a toll but the biggest threat is a deadly parasitic mite which Anderson discovered and called Varroa destructor. It has decimated bee populations everywhere except Australia which is now the only country that still has European honeybees living in the wild. While in Papua New Guinea, Anderson discovers another lethal mite, Varroa jacobsoni, that adds to the threat to the world’s honeybees…

via SBS: Documentary.