Honeybees Adaptation Examples

Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time. Trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren 't examples of biological evolution because they don 't involve descent through genetic inheritance.

In 2006, beekeepers in the United States began reporting unexpectedly high losses of their colonies, as much as 30-90 percent. The phenomenon came to be known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and its causation remains murky, as well as how to treat it. "The main symptom of CCD is very low or no adult honey bees present in the hive but with a live queen and no dead honey bee bodies present. Often there is still honey in the hive, and immature bees (brood) are present. Varroa mites, a virus-transmitting parasite of honey bees, have frequently been found in hives hit by CCD" (Honey Bees Colony and Collapse Disorder (CCD), 2012, USDA). However, this is only one of the speculated causes of CCD.

In the book “ The Secret Life Of Bees “ by Sue Monk Kidd , shows a lot a

Evolution is when an organism or something evolves over an extended period. An example of evolution would be humans because it took a long time for early humans to evolve into modern humans.

Feral honey bee hives have also had some problems with varroa mites. It has been interesting to learn how they have dealt with varroa mites. The effects of varroa mites on feral colonies is important to monitor and study so that we can determine how to alter the treatment of managed bee colonies. Many feral bee colonies died off due to varroa mites but the colonies that survived have developed a resistance to the mites.

The word evolution means the process of change over a period of time. For example: plants and animals evolve over time by their genetic system allowing them to adapt to different changes in the world. The theory of evolution states animals, insects, plants, humans, and etc are all from a one-celled ancestor. A bad example of evolution is having a bad diet, which does not pass on to your next generation.

In recent years, many citizens have been pushing the idea that we need to “save the bees,” specifically the western honey bee. Advocates for saving the bees spread information on social media. These posts can show how to start a bee garden and list off the plants that would become “extinct” without honey bees and claim that without honey bees agriculture in the United States would cease to exist. Others have bees that say “If we die, you die with us,” and state that the ecosystem would fail without the honey bee. But are either of these claims true?

Examples of animals adapting to the environment have been known as far back as the case of the black peppered moths of England in the mid-1800s. In that case, entire populations of the black peppered moths were observed to change color in response to changes in their environment. More recently, bacteria have been known to develop resistance to antibiotic drugs, insects have developed various forms of resistance to insecticide, and plants have adapted to accommodate higher levels of heavy metals in the soil and water.

Honeybees, of the genus Apis, play a huge role in our environment through pollination. One in every three bites of food you eat depends on pollinators. Pollinators transfer pollen and seeds, allowing the plant to grow and produce food. Without bees pollinating, many plants would eventually die off, including the crops that humans eat. But like any other living organism, they are subjected to disease and pests that are harmful to their population. The effective defense against disease is the most vital aspect of keeping a bee colony functioning properly. Their most effective defense mechanism that can lead to self-healing is their behavior of removing as many harmful agents as possible, such as parasites, from their colony. If the dead organism is too large, they will cover it with propolis, which prevents release of pathogens during decomposition of the body. The most important defense against disease, however, is their hygiene behavior. If they find an infected larva in a sealed cell, they will uncap the cell and remove the infected larva from the colony. If adult bees become ill, they will be forced

Seven years ago honeybee colonies were reported to be dying en masse. They were dying from multiple causes, and these bee disappearances reflect an infertile landscape and a dysfunctional food system. The problem is that in the last 50 years bees have been dying and we’re planting more crops that require bees pollination. Colony Collapse Disorder, Varroa mites, and our farming practices attribute to these disappearances of our most important pollinator, bees.

　　　Ironically, pests are also a problem, on top of pesticides, which are designed to stop pests. Some examples of these are the varroa mite and the tracheal mite. The varroa mite is a parasite that plants its eggs in developing bees and feasts on the brood. Most of the time, the bee is stunted and impaired, but if the worst scenario arises, it usually means death. Meanwhile, the tracheal mites plant themselves in four day old brew and block the bees respiratory

2012). Without the ability to return to the hive, affected worker honeybees were unable to tell other bees where the sources of food were and therefore more and more bees died. The first time that homing flights were studied under the impacts of neonicotinoid use, was in France using radio frequency identification to track specific bees until they died. This study showed that the bees would wait until the behavioral effects caused by the insecticides wore off until they could forage again (Schneider et al. 2012). Another study done in Japan took 60-100 wild foraging honeybees and exposed them to two different types of neonicotinoids (clothianidin and dinotefuran) for 30 minutes before releasing the bees 500 m from their hive. The results showed that there was a wide range of variability but the reduction in homing flights was significant (Matsumoto, 2013). From the results of these studies, it appears that the behaviors that are expected from honeybees are similar, no matter how the study is done. A reduction in homing flights and returning to the hive are common, as well as tremors and unhealthy

Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man” (“Einstein Once Said…”). After careful thought on this matter, this can be a scary concept to process. Millions of years have passed with the honey bee gracing the earth, and in fact, the honeybee is the only insect that aids in the production of food that is consumed by the human race (“20 Amazing Honey Bee Facts!”). Imagine going to a grocery store and there being no almonds to buy, a scarce supply of apples to choose from, and a very limited

Problem: Decreasing Bee population caused by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) During the 1980s onwards, the population of the bees had decreased at an alarming rate. The cause of the decline was “due to Varroa and tracheal mites: The first Varroa mite infestation was reported in 1987; tracheal mites were first detected in 1984.” [8] These die-offs forced many bee-keepers out of employment. These die-offs during the past were called by various names: “spring dwindle disease, fall dwindle disease, autumn collapse, May disease and disappearing disease.”[3]

Honey bees, feared by the misinformed and admired by the intelligent, are dying. The interest in bees from many environmentalists is not for a sudden cause, as this issue is not new to the world. Honey bees as a population have been in decline for years but have yet to reach the endangered species list anywhere in the United States except for Hawaii. Many people kill bees that buzz around joyfully, simply because they are afraid of being stung by them; however, a vast majority of bees do not sting and the others do not care. This unfortunate commonality is not even one of the top causes of the worldwide epidemic of honey bees. Although bees are jokingly idolized on the internet in pictures and videos as a result of a popular children’s movie, their population decline is in fact quite serious. Honey bees and other pollinators like birds and insects ensure the pollination of flowering plants and crops all around the globe. Not only do honey bees pollinate plants that produce the foods that humans eat, but they also pollinate trees that produce clean oxygen for Earth. Without honey bees, the world as we know it could soon end, due to carbon dioxide pollution and lack of farmable foods. The population of honeybees and other important pollinator-bee species is dwindling due to a dilemma known to scientists as colony collapse disorder (CCD) because of the use of bee-killing pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, the decrease of flower meadows in the world, and the general increase