The World 's Most Important Pollinators For Agricultural Purposes

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").

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 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.

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.

Studies have shown that the percentage of the amount of bee deaths have majorly increased. During past years surveys were sent out to commercial and small-time bee farmers on their total annual loss of honey bee colonies. During the 2012 and 2013 time period the annual total loss of bee colonies was at a peak of 45% of all their colonies. The 2013 and 2014 time period dropped to 34%. Then the 2014 and 2015 time period took a 7% percent jump leaving it around 41%. The most recent and influential is the 2015 and 2016 time period, from the past year it took a 3.1% percent jump to 44.1%, and this is of 48 states. At this rate we could be losing tons of bees and that sweet honey. But why are these bees dying so quickly, some might blame it to the

Neonicotinoid pesticides are a group of chemicals widely used on farm crops, plants, and trees (1). The concern behind these pesticides is the harmful impact on pollinating insects such as honey bees and bumble bees (1). Neonicotinoids are sprayed onto the plant where they are absorbed by the plant and are transported to all parts of the plant including the pollen (see figure 1) (1). Bees then ingest the pesticide via the pollen; specifically, this is the point where the central nervous system of the bees becomes compromised. A large number of deaths in bees is being used as an argument against the use of neonicotinoids (1).

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

Fungi are pathogens considered to have a serious impact on honey bees health and mortality by causing diseases. Nosemosis is one of the most dangerous diseases affecting the adult honey bee by infecting epithelial cells coating the midgut. This disease is caused by Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae which are intracellular microsporidian parasites from genus of Nosema. Studies point out that transportation of honey bees, infected beekeeping materials, and practices of some beekeeping migration are factors of Nosema's distribution. In addition, it has been demonstrated that some vectors may carry Nosema spores. For example, it has been found that the regurgitated pellets of the migratory bee-eating bird Merops apiaster contained infective Nosema spores.

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]

The innate immune system of honey bees, in general, has not changed. Four antimicrobial gene families have been isolated from A.m. mellifera, Apidaecin, Abaecin, Hymenoptaecin, and Defensin (Xu et al., 2009). Apidaecin is the major immune modulator, with activity against gram-negative plant bacteria. Abaecin has gram-positive and negative activity, but is weaker than Apidaecin, functioning primarily as a backup for bacterial resistance. Hymenoptaecin has activity for gram-positive and negative plant and human pathogens. Defensin has activity to gram-positive bacteria and has a minimal role in the immune system. In a study of more feral Asiatic honey bees (Apis cerana fabricus) versus the domesticated Western honey bee (A.m. mellifera), the Asiatic honey bee made more antimicrobial peptides and cDNA genes than the western honey bee (Xu et al., 2009). They theorize the longer history of domestication of A. m. mellifera, has led to a lower standing diversity of antimicrobial peptides, while Asiatic honey bees, under stronger selection pressure from pathogens and environment, has led to a greater diversity of antimicrobial peptides (Xu et al.,

apis. Real-time PCR validated that, of the total eleven virulence related candidate genes tested for their expression levels, six genes (OmtA, Ski3, TOXD, Hts1, Nor-1 and melanin) were highly expressed in the wild-type A. apis strain samples compared to its non-pathogenic mutant-7. In conclusion, mutant-7 showed loss of pathogenicity on honeybee larvae and relatively the lowest expression levels of selected candidate genes compared to the wild type. Furthermore, the expression of these virulence related genes suggests that they might have an important role as virulence factors in the pathogenicity of A. apis through their involvement in the secondary metabolism processes which support pathogenicity

There are several different species of insect pollinators, but the bees in general make up sixty-two percent of them. Honeybees make up thirty-nine percent of that number, and the other twenty-three is composed of several different species of bees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one-third of the homo-sapiens diet is insect pollinated and honeybees are accountable for eighty percent of the pollination of that one-third. The population of the honeybees in the United States has been noticeably declining from the late 1990 's, so the threat to the majority of the world food supply is slowly increasing as our pollinators population decreases.

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