The Colonization Of The Colony Collapse Disorder

Another event more recently was reported in Pennsylvania where Keepers reported a 53% loss of their hives. But what made this event most serious was the loss of 1/3rd of bee hives within the United States as a whole. This event appeared to have no particular rhyme or reason for this cause and no singular circumstance could be pointed to as an exact cause of such mass destruction of one species that is crucial to food production within the United States ("Honey Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder").

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.

The colony collapse disorder has been threatening the United States for many years. Reports show excessive numbers of honeybees dying off. According to the Bee Informed Partnership and USDA’s annual survey, during the winter of 2013-2014, the mortality of managed honeybee colonies was 23.2. The previous winter’s report showed a loss of 30.5 percent of the colonies and thus, the winter 2013-2014 results might show some improvement. However, beekeepers persist that the still declining honeybee colonies are becoming too low for colony collapse disorder to be considered a solved issue. Approximately two-thirds of the beekeepers reported losses greater than the acceptable 18.9 percent mortality rate, thus deeming the losses greater than what is economically sustainable. The issue

Honey bee hives will always have some mites within a colony but once natural remedies failed and the mite population has reached a certain percentage, it is necessary to use chemicals to retake control of the mite infestation in the colony. Individuals reporting the effects of varroa after they arrived in the U.S. stated that honey bee colonies would not survive unless beekeepers intervened with a chemical treatment (Ellis 2016). A bee colony can be treated for some of the bee viruses that are passed from the mites to the bees but if the mites are not controlled

The article “Hivey Leaguers” discusses problems affecting the bee population in the United States ranging from chemicals and insecticides to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Colony Collapse Disorder occurs when the worker bees disappear from the hives, leaving behind the queen and the nurses to take care of the immature bees. This newly discovered threat to bee populations caused widespread panic in the entomologist community and lead to a race to find the cause, and the relative cure. Though this new disorder was a danger, the real bane of the bees was a much more sinister, and domestic, threat.

Scientists are alarmed and baffled by the decline in bee populations around the United States and other parts of the world. Since 2004 the population keeps decreasing at alarming rates. Bee researches dubbed this new phenomenon Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Over the years, bees have received invasions from very dangerous parasites straight from a horror movie. For example Acarapis woodi are microscopic mites that infect the Trachea of bees by laying their eggs there, and feeding on their fluids weakening them considerably. The Varroa Destructor reproduces in honeybee hives, and are one of the bees greatest enemies. The female mites enter a hive cell, and lay eggs on the bee larva before the bees cover the cell in wax. When the

From around the year 2006, many bee farmers in the U.S.A and some parts of Europe started reporting sharp declines in their bee stocks. The reason for this declining numbers was not known and therefore scientists named it colony collapse disorder (CCD). Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a not a very old phenomena and it became popular when large number of bee colonies started disappearing. The disappearing was mysterious since no dead bees were found in or around the beehives after a colony’s number was reported to have gone down or vanished. This prompted a lot of study and investigations to uncover the mystery and to establish possible remedies. Among the many reasons for the causes of the CCD

Colony Collapse Disorder not only affects honey bees, but they also affects wild bees. Richard Gerber quotes “Many people would be surprised to know that 90% of the feral (wild) bee population in the United States has died out” (Gerber). With 90 percent of wild bees extinct, this astounding number really makes you wonder if this goes above and beyond the issues researchers are looking into. Is there something else that researchers and scientist may be overlooking for there to be such a diminishing population of wild bees? Gerber says that since 2007, 22 states have reported tens of thousands of honey

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]

mellifera, when the European honey bee began to be kept in areas where A. cerana is endemic [8]. A. mellifera proved to be a far more susceptible host due to differences between the species in brood development and, with the assistance of modern, globalized beekeeping practices, Varroa has been able to spread across most of the world. There is general consensus among honeybee researchers that the mites’ close association with honey bee viruses plays a significant part in explaining why their introduction to A. mellifera has proved so costly in terms of honey bee health. Varroa mites can transmit multiple viruses to their hosts and these viruses, not the mites themselves, may be responsible for a significant proportion of the harm that bees experience when they are parasitized by Varroa [9-11]. Viruses transmitted by feeding mites are able to pass directly into the developing pupae or adult bee’s hemolymph, thus bypassing the usual routes of transmission and therefore the honey bees’ existing defenses [12]

Since the late 1900’s, honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing in unusually high rates across the nation. The total number of these honey bee colonies has decreased from 5 million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million colonies today. Even though the bee colonies have decreased, the need for pollinators, such as bees, has increased dramatically. Declines in honey bee colony health were provoked further in the 1980s with the arrival of new pathogens and pests. The arrival of Varroa and tracheal mites into the United States during the 1990s created additional stress on the honey bee population. These various mites attack both adult bees and the developing honey bee larvae and can transmit viruses.

During the past decade the presence of bee diseases, droughts and other variable weather conditions has reduced the supply of bees worldwide. In the United States for example, the past few years have seen bush-fires, droughts, the killer mite (Varroa destructor) and the Colony Collapse Disorder wreck havoc with U.S. honey crops by destroying nearly two-thirds of their colonies. This has lead to a market opportunity for other countries to sell their honey to the U.S., which happens to be the largest consumer (and 3rd largest importer) of honey worldwide.

Human society is extremely complex and fragile, built upon various pillars. One of them is the honey bee. One out of three meals eaten by humans is made possible by honey bees. They are so important that if all the honey bees were to die out, thousands of plants would follow, which could lead to millions of people starving in the following years. On top of that, honey bees have a huge economic impact. The dollar value of plants pollinated by them each year is around $265 billion. Food we take for granted would just stop existing without them, or there would be a massive decrease in productivity. Food including apples, onions, pumpkins, and also plants used for feeding livestock and thus extremely important for our milk and meat. Einstein is often quoted as having said, “If honey bees die out, humans will follow a few years later.” Actually, he probably didn’t say that, but there might be some truth in the statement. It’s unsettling, but honey bees have started to disappear. Millions of hives have died in the last few years. Beekeepers all over the world have seen an annual loss of 30–90% of their colonies. In the US alone, bees are steadily declining. From 5 million hives in 1988 to 2.5 million today. Since 2006, a phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder” has affected honey bees in many countries. And we’re not entirely sure what’s causing it. All we know is that it’s pretty serious. Over the last few decades bees have seen an invasion of very dangerous foes. Parasites

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