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Colony Collapse Disorder: The Disappearance of the Honeybee
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
I used to hate bees. As a kid I threw stones at their hives and overhand smashed them into the pavement with my tennis racket. Now, as a compassionate and more or less rational adult, I nevertheless still fear their stingers, though interestingly enough, I haven’t actually been stung once since I stopped chucking rocks into bees’ homes and Björn Borging them into early graves. I guess the bees and I have achieved some kind of microcosmic human-bee peace accord: a consensus of mutual understanding, tolerance and respect. But it may all have been in vain.
There is a serious problem with the bees. Case in point: the European honeybee, also known as the Western honeybee. It is this variety of bee upon which we humans rely greatly for the pollination of many of our crops, not to mention the delicious honey they provide – something that is really more for them than us and far less important for human health and survival. But those monoculture crops that depend on honeybee pollination: fruits, nuts, vegetables, flowers, seeds, beans and spices, are consequently under threat due to the flight of the bumbling bees, or as scientists like to call it, “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CDC).
The recent BBC documentary program “Who Killed the Honey Bee?” outlines the phenomena of Colony Collapse Disorder, where bees either die off or curiously vanish without leaving a dead body or even so much as a goodbye note. Since 2006 the honeybee population in North America has rapidly declined to dangerously low levels. In Europe, so far 1/3 of British bees have disappeared, while France experienced a similar problem in the 1990s, from which it has yet to recover.
So what is causing the bees to buzz off and not come home to their keepers? The precise answer is not known, but possible causes include pesticides, viruses, parasites – which carry viruses – and (you guess it) climate change. Many keepers blame systemic insecticides, which are absorbed by plants and are designed to kill pests who subsequently eat them. Unfortunately, this may include honeybees. Another suspected culprit is the ominously named Varroa destructor, or Varroa mite, a known and hated honeybee parasite that carries viruses and has grown resistant to chemical deterrents. Weakened bees are especially susceptible to these viruses as well as to cold winter weather.
The Urban Honeybee
London – though conventional wisdom would seem to contradict this – may be less polluted than the English countryside, at least in ways that affect honeybees. With its many gardens and parks, the city offers a large amount and diverse variety of flowers for bees to pollinate and perhaps crucially, it isn’t full of insecticides. Orlando Clarke, an urban beekeeper based in London, where honeybee colonies are thriving, believes that “bees act as a barometer for the health of the entire planet”. This kind of conceptual thinking has also been applied to the disappearance of frogs, termed the Global Frog Crisis.
Possible solutions
So what more can we expect from Colony Collapse Disorder and what can be done to combat it? According to “Who Killed the Honey Bee?” bee viruses are spreading more than ever and weak bees are having more trouble surviving them.
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
In the meantime, British scientists are attempting to breed disease resistant bees, while in the U.S., importing Varroa resistant bees from Russia has shown some success. Beekeepers themselves are making efforts to keep collapsed colonies separate from healthy ones, as well as attempting to prevent the spread of parasites like the Varroa mite. What we, as private citizens, can do is plant gardens, keep a variety of flowering outdoor plants and where possible, either raise a few hives of our own or allow keepers to keep some hives on our land.
If the disappearance of the honeybee is indeed the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” as some suggest, and a harbinger of worse things to come, the seriousness of Colony Collapse Disorder cannot be overestimated. Without the pollination of honeybees, foods such as almonds, peaches, apples, cherries, raspberries, cranberries, strawberries, watermelons and cucumbers could all end up being rare luxury items. So I hope you all like potatoes.
By Graham Land
Additional resources:
Watch and read about the BBC documentary “Who Killed the Honey Bee?”
UK government website: National Bee Unit
Orlando Clarke’s website: PURE LONDON HONEY
Lead image source: istockphoto.com
Tags: Colony Collapse Disorder, honeybee, Varroa, Who Killed the Honey Bee?
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The original honey is highly required product. The price for honey is getting higher especially before Christmas time. The areas where bees are located are usually less polluted then comparable ones. If we let to strike bees with their natural killers the end of them became to be irreversible. I don´t want to eat potatoes instead of honey…
Human’s are crazy animals. We’ve had it too good for too long, and are still doing all we can to mess things up!
There is still no consensus on what is causing the honeybees to disappear. Is a natural phenomenon or a human made disaster? Beekeepers are scrambling to keep stocks alive and maybe the answer will show up in a few years. So don’t swat anything dead, you may wipe out an entire crop.
This is very interesting to read this now, because last year around this time, I had an issue with honeybees in my home. They would mysteriously show up and shortly after, suddenly drop and die, usually near a light source (either a lamp or a windowsill). I could not find any explainable reason for it. I have seen a few of them in the wild this year, and others of the bee family, but nowhere near as much as I used to.