Honey Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder

            Beginning in the winter of 2006 to 2007, beekeepers began to notice a significant decline in losses of their hives, as high as 30 to 90 percent for no apparent reason (Kaplan, 2012). The population of honeybees continues to decline today. The disappearance of these honey bees is now known as the colony collapse disorder (or CCD). This is concerning because honeybees play an important role in the pollination of plants, especially for agriculture but the loss of honeybees doesn’t stop there. The honey that honeybees make has significant medicinal properties. Honey provides antioxidants, relief to colds, and when applied to scrapes or wounds, it aids the healing process with its natural antibacterial and antimicrobial properties (Shock, 2015). It promotes digestion. The loss of honeybees is not only a threat to biodiversity but the health of plants and people.

Colony losses of managed honey bee colonies in the United States. U.S Department of Agriculture.

            There have been different theories as to the cause of this decline in the honeybee population.  This loss has been strongly associated with pesticides and herbicides that farmers spray on their fields to keep their crops healthy. A study researching the impact of the pesticides on honeybees showed that these chemicals have toxic effects on both the growth and development of the larval honeybees and the behavior of adult honeybees (Simon-Delso, 2014). The exact impact of pesticides on bee populations is unknown but based on what is known about the pesticides, researchers believe that the pesticides may be “modifying the existing micro flora” (Simon-Delso, 2014) or essential amino acids, causing imbalance in the composition of nutrients.. Good nutrition is essential to the health and development of bees. Without it, the colonies health is put at stake.

https://phys.org/news/2009-09-bees-mites.html

           Another possible cause of this colony collapse disorder that has been suggested is the emergence of a parasitic mite known as Varroa destructor and it’s infestation of honeybees (Nazzi, 2012). This parasite can transmit pathogenic viruses; the deformed wing virus in particular has been associated with the loss of bee colonies. It was found that this mite could de-stabilize the virus and transform this deadly virus to rapidly replicate. This de-stabilization is the result of the down-regulation of a strong gene significant to an insect’s immune response to stress suggesting that different stress factors in bees could promote the viral replication in bee colonies, infecting and killing them.  Stress factors could be a result of environmental factors or it could be the pesticides described above that are potentially diminishing the bee colonies ability to stay healthy.

            Coming up with a solution is rather difficult due to how unclear the exact causes of the decline in the bee population are. For one, it would be rather hard to totally stop the use of pesticides at this point as it has been used for years by farmers and could be rather harmful to the economy if a significant portion of food supply was lost. Even if the pesticides are what’s killing bee populations, the impact of pesticides on bee colonies is not clear, therefore would not be considered enough evidence to put a end to pesticides purely for the bees. It would also take a considerable amount of research in addition to what has already been done to determine if these virus-spreading mites to bees are really a detriment to the bee population and if they are how to stop the spread of the virus.

            Although there are no perfect solutions to this problem currently, there are efforts being done in attempt to save the bee population.  The creation of a monitoring system is in the works to gather data about bee colonies. The purpose of this system is “to obtain information about environmental conditions surrounding the beehives” (Gil-Lebrero, 2016) without bothering the bees and allowing beekeepers to track information such as the temperature, humidity, and weight of their beehives. The more data that can be collected about bee colonies, the more knowledge about the bees is gained to come up with ideas about how the bee population can be saved.

Bibliography

Gil-Lebrero, S., Quiles-Latorre, F., Ortiz-López, M., Sánchez-Ruiz, V., Gámiz-López, V., & Luna-Rodríguez, J. (2016). Honey Bee Colonies Remote Monitoring System. Sensors, 17(1), 55.

Kaplan, J. K. (2012). Colony Collapse Disorder. Agricultural Research, 60(6), 4-8.

Nazzi, F., Brown, S. P., Annoscia, D., Piccolo, F. D., Prisco, G. D., Varricchio, P., Pennacchio, F. (2012). Synergistic Parasite-Pathogen Interactions Mediated by Host Immunity Can Drive the Collapse of Honeybee Colonies. PLoS Pathogens, 8(6).

Shock, A. (2015). Honeybees: CCD and Why Action Must Be Taken. Kentucky English Bulletin, 65(1), 70-75.

Simon-Delso, N., Martin, G. S., Bruneau, E., Minsart, L., Mouret, C., & Hautier, L. (2014). Honeybee Colony Disorder in Crop Areas: The Role of Pesticides and Viruses. PLoS ONE, 9(7).