Colony Collapse Disorder

If you follow honey bees at all, you probably know that the beekeeping population has
drastically decreased. In fact, since 1942 the honey bee population has decreased by more than
45 million. However, recently in 2006, beekeepers began to notice an unusual decrease and
disappearance in their honey bee colonies. According to a blog posted on Nature.com in 2013 by
Samantha Jakubuski: It seemed as if thousands of honeybees were vanishing into thin air.
There were no traces left behind and no dead bees were being found near the colonies. Since
then, more than 30% (and for some unlucky beekeepers, up to 90%) of the honeybee colonies
have been disappearing each year, including many worker bees that are vital to the colonies'
survival and prosperity. This drastic drop in honey bee population has been in the news in recent
years and has been getting increasingly more attention. Because of the collapse of colonies, the
name that has been given to this phenomenon is Colony Collapse Disorder. There have been
several theories about why Colony Collapse Disorder is such a problem. However, Marla
Spivak, a well-known entomologist from the U of M has a well-known and well respected theory
about Colony Collapse Disorder. She says that Colony disorder has five main reasons; that all
interact and make a hexagon when shown visually together.

These five reasons for Colony Collapse Disorder (or the mass die-off of honey bees) is the large
amount of one type of crop being planted such as corn or soybeans which do not provide areas
for bees to pollinate. These large areas of monocultures create a lack of food source for bees
because they do not tend to pollinate a lot of these crops, and if they do they are very low in
protein. These monocultures also create very large areas that have no flowers, creating food
desserts, for bees. Also, there are trace amounts that can slowly poison the bees. One of these
pesticides is called a neonicotinoid, which is a systemic pesticide. This means that the pesticide
actually goes into the plant, which can make it even more lethal. In addition to all of these
challenges, there are also many diseases and parasites that honey bees face. One of these
parasites is called a Varroa mite, which is a mite that lives and breeds in honey bee larvae and
then sucks their blood when they are adults. This is equivalent to having a parasite the size of a
Frisbee living on our back sucking our blood; it would definitely drain our energy and shorten
our life. Even with a few of these challenges, I think there would be a drop in population, just as
there are in honey bee colonies with a presence of Varroa. If you think of the size of honey bees
and all the challenges that they face, no matter they are currently facing a major drop in
population. In my next blog, I will touch on the ways that you can help the honey bees and other
native pollinator pollinations.