Colony Collapse Disorder and Pesticides Essay

Each year since 2006, bees have gradually been disappearing from their hives or dying off. Bees have died off before in the past. This is called colony collapse disorder or CCD. In the past CCD was cause by mites or infections, but now this is caused because of the commercial agricultural farmers. Bees play a key part in pollination. When the crops are pollinated by the bees, they are capable of producing the fruits or vegetables the human population eats. Farmers primarily depend upon the bees to pollinate their crops. The honeybees were the most adaptable bees out

This paper reviews the phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), or the disappearance of large swathes of the bee population in the US and elsewhere. It reviews the potential causes of CCD, including pathogens, pesticides, and other environmental factors that could contribute to bee deaths. Although many have linked the widespread use of pesticides to the phenomenon, there is no 'smoking gun' that is clearly implicated in causing CCD. The phenomenon can likely be attributed to a wide variety of factors, rather than a singular cause.

The bees never seem to catch a break which is putting the bees under “stress” which is a factor. Furthermore, when they are pollinating all these different plants some are not nutritious as others, for example cucumbers aren’t as healthy as some of the other plants but there is still a demand for them, so the bees still have to work and eventually become unhealthy if they aren’t getting the right nutrients. Another factor is pesticides, which has many different points of view but overall it has come to decided it is not the pesticides themselves that are killing masses of bees but it is lowering their immune system and making it easier for them to get sick, for example with the common parasite Nosema. Nosema is a parasite in the digestive track of the honey bee that attacks the entire hive and can eventually wipe out the whole hive. The effects of the pesticides are ultimately never letting the hives reach their maximum potential, which in the end could render the hives weak and lethargic. There are so many pesticides out there it is hard to tell exactly what component in the pesticide is hurting the bees. It is recently found that the inert ingredients used often to boost the effectiveness of the pesticide are actually more harmful than the actual toxic ingredients

According to the article, Honey Bee Heath and Colony Collapse Disorder, honey bees around the U.S are slowly and puzzlingly disappearing. This slow disappearance of the honey bee population is caused by a disorder known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD.) Colony Collapse Disorder causes adult honey bees to completely “vanish” leaving behind only the queen bee along with immature bees. Although this disease is receiving a lot of attention and research on CCD is taking place, the causes and treatments for Colony Collapse Disorder are still undefinable as well. Some may ask, “Who cares? Why is it important that bees are disappearing?” It is important because bees are the foundation to U.S agriculture and they are vital to worldwide economic stability which is why finding the cause and treatment for CCD is a top priority for scientists and researchers around the world.

Recently I read an article in the Hill Country Observer titled “Hives of Controversy” by Tracy Frisch (http://www.hillcountryobserver.com/2015news/Sept2015bees1.htm). The article talks about colony collapse disorder and the causes. The tests that have been done and continue to proceed mention that the insecticide neonicotinoids can be a major cause for the loss of bees. As with most if not all chemical insecticides they don't readily break

Some causes of bee loss is pesticides, determining a specific role of pesticides in pollinators health is complicated. Pesticides play a small role in bee deaths. Pesticides weaken insects’ immune systems making the insect extremely weak. Most to all pesticides causes stress in bees. When bees are stressed the ability to sterilise

Bees are important pollinators of many plants in the ecosystem (2). Recently, the decline in the number of bees in North America and Europe has shifted the research focus of many ecologists towards pesticide use (2). The impacts of pesticides on bees and other pollinators can have a major influence on honey production and biodiversity.

Over the past years, the bee population has decreased significantly. The primary suspect for the troubles that the bees are facing is Neonicotinoids, also known as neonics, used on agriculture. They are a new type of pesticide, which were created in order to prevent harm to human health, but still has major consequences for bees. The effects of the neonics are similar to nicotine, which lessens their motor skills. Also, the pesticides attach to the receptors of neurotransmitters in their central nervous system. This can cause an block in the receptors, often causing paralysis or in extreme cases death. These horrible pesticides also cause a significant decrease in olfactory memory at below median amount or a significant impairment of learning performance (Aliouane, 2009). Therefore, banning pesticides is very important to the wellbeing of the bees. In addition, a large amount of our food is produced by bees and it they were to be gone, a vast variety of food would disappear causing lots of negative effects. Bees are essential to our everyday food supply, and therefore, neonicotinoids should be

The decline in a variety of bee populations on a global scale has been obvious since the 1990s and scientists have been struggling with what is actually causing this decline. Current studies show that the use of systemic pesticides, specifically neonicotinoids, has been causing the number of bees to decrease rapidly. There are currently seven different types of neonicotinoids used in the agricultural industry today including imidacloprid, clothianidin, acetamiprid, thiamethoxam, thiacloprid, dinotefuran, and nithiazine. Each of these neonicotinoids are currently being studied and the most commonly used neonicotinoid today is imidacloprid.

The purpose of this report was to determine why bees are disappearing and the effect on the world if they disappeared, like pesticides and fungicides role in their disappearance, the role Colony Collapse Disorder has on their disappearance, the knock on effect on pollination, the knock on effect on crops, can anything take up their role, can humans take up their role and is life possible without bees. It was determined that a combination of pesticides and fungicides that contaminates the bees pollen leave the bees three time more likely to be infected by a parasite, allow not enough evidence is available some evidence shows that a combination of factors lead to CCD where the adult bees leave the hive, the queen, the baby bees and some worker bees this is not enough to support the hive in the long run so they die. Insects’ pollination accounts for one third of the human diet of which eighty percent is done by bees, so see a fifty percent decrease in pollination levels over twenty years could crop yields fall dramatically. Climate change which is thought to play a big role in when the bees immerge from hibernating through winter and loss of habitat also has an effect on how much the bees pollinate. One in every three mouth fulls of food of the average person is directly or indirectly linked to honey bee pollination, the effect of bees disappearing would cause plants that solely rely on bees to pollinate them to die out, out of one hundred crops which provides nighty

“There is a strong scientific consensus that bees are exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides in the fields and suffer harm from the doses received, according to a new analysis of all the scientific evidence to date.” (Carrington, 2015). I will argue the idea that the exposure to the neonicotinoid insecticides are one of the key causes of the population declination in bees. According to many studies, neonicotinoid insecticides physically harm bees as they inhibit their nervous system and they can no longer navigate their way home (Fischer et al, 2014). Bees are also crucial for the pollination of many crops around the world, without them, a great percent of our agricultural practices would suffer

As scientists and beekeepers keep on looking into the situation that they are all facing, one conclusion is definite, pesticides do have a lethal effect on the bees. Some symptoms that would lead to a bee’s death would be the weakened immune system, disrupted digestion, and the result of the brain failing. In Science Magazine, an article was written about oh the European countries have been effected by the decrease of bees, “Confused honey bees huddled trembling outside

The decrease in honeybee colonies began in 2006-2007 winter, when American honeybee farmers noticed bees and queen bees were dying at alarming rates, producing less honey and not pollinating as frequent. (“Colony Collapse Disorder”). The main believed cause for the loss of so many bees are pesticides,

Goulson shows a battle in whether pesticides , which are regarded as the materials that can harm crop pollinator should be forbidden.According to his research ,the chemicals in the pesticides can spread widely through pollinators , and little of the toxin may lead to the death of the bees. What's more ,if the exposure of the chemical to very low levels of neonicotinoids that are not sufficient to kill the bees but can influence the abilities and the behaviors .There are also some other researches but they are not convincing because of some obvious shortcomings.On the other hand , neonicotinoids can provide economic benefits and those are difficult to substitute. As a result, it is still a controversy should those pesticides can be

Some mostscientists believe that CCD is the result of an unfortunate combination of many factors all of which work to increase the honey bee’s stress and reduce its immune system. Nowadays, the disappearance of honey bees has transformed into a global epidemic, having a huge impact on economy and ecosystem worldwide. Since 2006, North American migratory beekeepers have seen an annual 30 percent to 90 percent loss in their colonies; non-migratory beekeepers noted an annual loss of over 50 percent. Similar losses were reported in Canada, as well as several countries in Europe and Asia as well.