The Disappearance of Honey Bees

Honey BeesBackground

Caste & individual roles

Colony Collapse Disorder Symptoms

Theories 6 theories for CCD

Why should you care?

Caste40,000-80,000 within 1 hive

Drone Around 300 drones in a hive

Only job = mate with queen

Big eyes

No stinger

September drones are kicked out of hive

Life expectancy = 90 days

Worker Only bees most people see

Females that are not sexually developed

Forage for food

Build, clean, maintain, protect/guard hive

Circulate air – too hot or too cold

Take care of queen and larvae

Queen Selected by worker bees in larvae stage

Fed “royal jelly” – secretion from the glands on the heads of worker bees – allows sexual maturity

Develops in queen cell – larger – vertical not horizontal

Mates once with 13-18 drones

Queen 1 queen per hive

Long abdomen for laying eggs

Up to 3,000 eggs a day

Mother of all bees in hive

Produces pheromones

3-5 years

Disappearance Hackenberg Apiaries – Lewisburg, Pennsylvania

Family owned business – 50 years old

Transports over 2,200 hives throughout US

Reported in October 2006

Lost 1,900 of 2,900 hives

Brett Adee lost 2 billion bees in 2 weeks

Colony Collapse DisorderSymptoms:

No dead bees around

No mites or pathogens to explain problem

Queen and young are left behind

Theory 1 : Artificial Food Substitutes

Made of high fructose corn syrup

Collecting nectar and pollen from GM foods generation after generation

Theory 2 : Artificial Insemination

Commercial beekeepers kill queen every couple of months

Replace with artificial queen bee in cage

Theory 3 : Monocultures

Don’t exist in nature

Everything blooms at once – limited resource

Pests love monocultures

Theory 4 : Pesticides

Made for chemical warfare WW1

Pesticides sprayed – beekeepers move hives

Theory 5 : Systemic pesticides Gaucho – made by Bayer

Can’t move hives

Same thing in France 1994

EPA – onlyconsiders affectson adults

Theory 6 : SynergyMultiple factors

Forced MigratoryCan’t forage --Fed artificial foods

Can’t maintain hive temp

Lose 10% of queens each move

Increases need for artificial queens

Bees from Australia imported 4 years ago for U.S. almond crop

Transporting bees via airplane

Pressure

Time change

Importing Honey Bees

Why should you care? Bees are an indicator of environmental quality

Pollinate 1/3 of the food we consume

Pollinate $15 billion worth of food annually in U.S

35 % of our fruits and veggies are imported

More than 95% of the food we eat is treated with pesticides

1 billion pounds of toxic chemicals used annually on agriculture

Thank you