From Wikipedia: “Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a little-understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. CCD was originally found in Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.”

This is something I have been thinking about on and off lately. At first I thought it was a lot of hype, wouldn’t local honey prices be rising if all the bees were dieing? Then I saw a special report about it on the nightly news a couple days ago and it got me thinking about it again, armed with more knowledge. Turns out this disorder is more in populations of honey bees that are used to pollinate things other then clover (most of our honey comes from honey bees raised in clover fields) like all those yummy crops in the grocery store.

No one really knows what is causing CCD, or perhaps they know but are afraid to say so (ah conspiracy theories…) The finger is pointed at many factors, pollution, disease, environmental changes, cellular phone radiation, mites, pesticides, GM crops with pest control characteristics… the list goes on and one.

From what I understand bees have been sick for a long time plagued by pathogens and mites, relatively speaking feral (wild) honeybees are almost non-existent in the United States. Few people realize how vital honey bees are to the production of our food, they are major pollinators. Heck, few people even know where their food comes from anymore…

I have my own theories on CCD of course, one shared by many beekeepers. I think it is a combination of factors but I believe insecticides play a major role. It is not surprising to me that CCD has virtually only been reported by commercial beekeepers and not organic beekeepers.

Organic = no insecticides
No insecticides = no CCD

Duh? Am I the only one who sees the connection here?

A lot of people blame a neonicotinoid called Imidacloprid but there is little evidence to support this. It was banned in France in 1999 and there has still been a continuing decline in the bee population. This is why leads me back to the combination of factors. Insecticides, like Imidacloprid, weaken the immune system of the bees and cause disorientation. This causes the bees to be more susceptible to diseases such as mites. When the bees are sick and disoriented they cannot find their way back to the hives. If enough bees cannot find their way back to their hive, the hive collapses. Banning one insecticide is not going to sold the problem, there are lots of different neonicotinoids.

Imagine a world without bees. Not frightening? It is. Bees are one of my main pollinators of our crops, farmers even rent them to boost their production, otherwise their farms would not be profitable. Massive crop losses would occur without bees and all those losses would be passed on to the consumers (that’s us!) If people cannot afford food the economy would have a lot of stress added to it. Without bees, I don’t think it is too much to say that our society would suffer collapse too.

I am not trying to be an alarmist, but someone has to keep the debate going out about these problems. We put so much stress on our environment, bees are just another thermometer of how we are treating the planet. Is it to much to ask that we all become a little more eco-friendly and demand more purity from our food source?

We are not above the environment, we are part of it.

Everything is connected.