Colony Collapse

The bees of the United States are suffering from abnormaly high death rates, and experts are calling the disorder Colony Collapse.

Honey bee is the common name for the species Apis mellifera. There are many sub-species of honey bees found world-wide, though the name was originally given the the European honey bee, which is the most commonly domesticated honey bee.

The worker bees make up the majority of a hive. These are female bees, usually sterile, and include the bees that leave the hive to harvest the pollen on which the entire colony depends, as well as some of the workers inside the hive that create the comb and tend the eggs and pupae. Drones are male bees that typically exist for the sole purpose of fertilizing the queen and die shortly after.

Worker bees live different lengths of time during different seasons. During the spring and summer they typically have shorter lifespans and spend their time foraging for pollen and nectar. When winter approaches, the bees are expected to live longer and work less; this is how they survive the colder winter months. One factor in Colony Collapse is that the bees are not living longer during the winter. Some experts think this could be related to global warming, and extended warm months.

Some of the many other theories include:

The bees may have become disoriented by cell phone radiation or other man-made technologicla radiation. This theory is being spread on-line, but is widely discalimed by bee experts and other authories.

Mites may be affecting the hives. Mites are a subclass or arachnids, and live inside the bees bodies. These microscopic creatures infect a hive or colony and can kill them off by killing individual bees. Mites are common in bees, but when the mite population beccomes too alrge the bees will die off in greater numbers.

Insecticides have been implicated as a factor in Colony Collapse. Because bees forage for food, they are easily exposed to pesticides, especially when they are transported for pollination work to fruit or nut farms that use pesticides. Pesticides can kill enough worker bees that the colony can not support itself, or pesticides can contaminate the pollen and nectar and disrupt the brood or queen of the hive, disabling the hives ability to produce new bees.

Genetically modified crops have also been blamed. Some proteins from genetically modified plants can be traced in the pollen and nectar that the bees collect. While studies have not shown direct death of bees that forage on genetically engineered plants, some studies have shown weakened immune that, when coupled with a disease, parasite, or insecticide, could cause massive deaths in a hive.

Global warming and changing wather patterns, as mentioned above, may also be a factor. The stress of shorter cold months, or fiercer competition by invasive plants or bees that thrive in an altering climate, could be debilitating native bees and domesitcated honey bees.

Poor nutrition is a possible cause that is linked with global warming, as well as invasive species. Plants that are struggling to survive in a warmer climate, or competing with invasive species, may produce less pollen, or simply less nutritious pollen, than native plants in healthy habitats. If bees rely on pollen that is deficient in certain minerals or nutrients, they will suffer from this.

Urbanization and moncrops are two modern phenomemon that may be contributing to Colony Collapse. Fragmented habitats, and lack of native and wild flowering plants due to urbanization may further stress the bess. Because bees recall mental images to find their way back to their nest, long strands of monocrops may distort their memory.

Though this has been in the news for months, it has been receiving increasing coverage as the mystery deepens. A recent article in Salon publishes an interview with four experts on this issue. Even between the four of them, they don't have a definite answer as to what is causing Colony Collapse.

The final answer is that no one really knows what is causing this decline in bee populations, The best answer is that it is a combination of many of the issues described above, perhaps not even the same issues across the board. However, most experts agree that humans are a factor, and our massive suburban expansion, contributions to global warming by burning fossil fuels, decimation of wild lands and support of monocrops are all contributing to the Colony Collapse. The issue at hand is that we are not living sustainably, in every sense of the word. The death of the bees is just one sign of the stress we are putting on the planet. They are the canaries in the mine, and we must take care of them, in order to take care of ourselves.