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• May 8, 2006 4:30 pm US/Eastern
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  Rare Honey Bees Removed From Zelienople Barn

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Rare Honey Bees Removed From Zelienople Barn

ZELIENOPLE (KDKA/AP) ― Two colonies of rare honey bees were removed from a barn over the weekend and will be used to establish other colonies and for research into how they survived for so long.

Craig Cella, a Penn State University bee expert, and local beekeeper Kevin Lutz removed the bees - known as apis mellifera - on Sunday from the barn about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh.

The colonies are believed to be more than 12 years old, which is much older than the average colony, Lutz said.

"If a colony lives for two years it's rare, especially for a wild colony," Lutz said.

Experts are interested in the colonies because the honey bee population has been dropping in the United States and bees are used to pollenate about 90 percent of the fruits and vegetables grown domestically.

Some of the thousands of bees found Sunday will be kept for research, while others will be used to grow new colonies in other locations.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)