ELKADER — Honey bees are “the second love” of Bob Fassbinder’s life, second only to his wife Kathy, with whom he has operated Fassbinder Apiaries near Elgin for the past 41 years.

Fassbinder said he could talk all day about the benefits of bees, but he had only 20 minutes to make his points Saturday as a featured speaker at the Music & Monarchs festival sponsored by the Clayton County Conservation Awareness Network.

Though honey bee populations have declined dramatically in the past 20 years, Fassbinder said he remains hopeful they will not become extinct.

He bases his optimism on a renewed interest in beekeeping, an expansion of pollinator plants in rural landscapes and strains of honey bees that are genetically resistant to one of the bees’ chief nemeses — varroa mites and the viruses they transmit.

Those mites, along with increased pesticide use and reductions in the forage bees need to survive, get most of the blame for declining honey bee populations.

Read the full article on the Cedar Rapids Gazette website.