Chapter 8, Problem 1CR

To determine

The economic and ecological importance of honey bees. The contribution of human activities in the decline of European honey bees. The colony collapse disorder.

Answer to Problem 1CR

The honey bee provides products like honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, nectar and so on for economic use. Ecologically they pollinate the flowers, so help in the production of fruits and seeds for other animals to feed on. The activities like deforestation, extraction of honey from honeycombs and climate change due to pollution have caused a decline in honey bee population. The colony collapse disorder is the condition when worker bees die rapidly and leave behind the queen bee with few nurse bees. This causes the death of the whole colony of bees.

Explanation of Solution

The honey bees are economically and ecologically important. They participate in the production of honeycombs that are a source of a variety of products like honey, beeswax, royal jelly, bee pollen, nectar and so on that are used commercially and are of high economic value. The ecological significance of the bees is that they are the major vectors that pollinate the flower while they visit flower for nectar. The pollinated flowers are then the source of fruits and seeds for herbivores, birds, and small animals.

Human activities have caused a drastic decline in the bee population. It is mainly due to loss of habitat. Deforestation is the air source of habitat loss and loss of food source. The bees are also affected by climate change which is caused due to pollution, the overexploitation of bee products have also resulted in a decrease in their population.

The European honey bees are facing the threat of endangerment due to excessive loss of forest cover, overexploitation of bee products, loss of food sources like flowers and fruits. This loss of trees has also affected other organisms that are connected in the food web with bees like herbivores, small animals, birds and many more.

The colony collapse disorder is referred to the condition of the honey bee colony when the worker bees start to disappear due to changing environmental conditions and the queen bee is left along with a few nurse bees. This leads to the decline in the production of honey as well as other bees and hence, as a result, the colony of the bees collapses.