Where have all the honeybees gone?
By Desiree Chevalier
Lance Writer
October 8, 2008
 Most people think of honeybees in two capacities: as bringers of honey and as the noble providers of the Burt’s Bee’s line of beeswax-based beauty products. Fewer people probably think of the important role that bees play in the food that we eat.
According to Zac Browning, the vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, “every third bit we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food.” That’s difficult news to swallow in the face of the recent honeybee decline. Normally, a dependence upon bees to pollinate the food that we eat hasn’t been a major problem. However, in recent years, beekeepers have noticed huge numbers of their bees leaving their colonies and simply never returning; their absence leaves the queen and any young left in the nest behind to perish. The causes of this decline are considered manifold and although scientists are frantically studying the stresses that may affect bees in an effort to at least slow the progression of the decline, a complete understanding of the factors killing the bees still eludes even the most knowledgeable of experts.
Similar to humans, honeybees are susceptible to a variety of stresses that can affect their health and survival. One of the newer and perhaps most interesting hypotheses suggests that pollution may be affecting bees’ ability to find flowers and pollinate them. The inability to quickly find flowers may leave the bees depleted and exhausted; weakened, they may struggle to find their hives again and simply die in the fields. In addition, a greater investment of energy in finding flowers might weaken the bees’ immune systems making them vulnerable to other stresses.
Other causes of what has been dubbed colony collapse disorder, or CCD, are parasitic mites. One type of mite, the tracheal mite, actually blocks the airways of the bees, killing them through asphyxiation. In addition, viruses transmitted by parasitic mites that invade the bee colonies can compromise the health of the hive. The varroa mite can suck blood from the bees and eventually kill them; bees in almost any demographic can fall ill or die because of the mite. In addition, a greater danger is presented by parasites carried by the mites. Once transmitted to a few bees, the viruses spread rapidly infecting the whole colony. Frequently, a colony infected with a particular virus will not survive, especially if several members are already weakened by other factors, such as mite parasitism or pesticides. Pesticides present a problem because they are often used in conjunction with crops, and when sprayed anywhere near the bee colonies, they can have an impact not just on the health of the bees, but also on the fertility of the queen, resulting in fewer replacement worker bees and ultimately the decline of the hive.
Despite these stresses, beekeepers and scientists are still shocked by the complete lack of dead bees that are found. It appears as though large numbers of the bees simply leave the hive and never return; where they go and why is not understood. It is for this reason that CCD is so frightening to experts; they simply cannot understand why the disappearances are happening, which means they also can’t properly take measures to address the problem. Whatever mysterious factors are causing the decline will continue unchecked until further research provides an improved understanding. While bee disappearances have happened before, it is the scale of the recent disappearance causing the greatest concern.
In the meantime, beekeepers continue to tote their colonies in trucks around the country, bringing them to fields for pollination with the knowledge that each time they start a new job that their bees may simply never return. They continue to look at new breeds of bees that are more robust in an attempt to circumvent the honeybee dependence in the agricultural industry. In addition, scientists continue to team with the beekeepers in an effort to better understand the potential causes of CCD. Whether the honeybee decline will mean disaster for the agricultural industry depends on how long it takes to find those answers; hopefully, they will not come too late.
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