Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder.

This morning, a co-worker asked me if I had heard about how all the honey bees were dying. Then I remembered mojoman's comments on this post. It all started sounding kind of ominous to me, so I thought I'd check it out.

Colony Collapse Disorder occurs when worker bees stop returning to their hives, leaving juveniles and other bees to die. No one has figured out the cause yet, but obviously the impact could be very serious. We count on honey bees to pollinate flowers ,nuts, fruits, and vegetables.

There have been a few theories thrown out there about what the possible cause might be. agricultural pesticides, parasites, diseases, stress, genetically altered crops, poor nutrition, and a lack of genetic diversity among bees. It could be a combination of these factors or something totally different.

The recent problem with declining numbers is different than in past years. It seems that bees are losing their natural ability to find their way back to the hive. Something is seriously wrong here. I hope it is a fixable problem.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't rea;;y know how to use this computer but the bees have returned to my back yard. My little flowers garden is crawling with them I havent seen them in years this is the first year If anyone is interested you can email me thru my son at funnyguy25@gmail.com

Larry said...

You did fine working the computer.-I'm glad that the bees are back in your yard.-I still only have a few honey bees in my yard. It's been like that for the last two years.

Larry said...

You did fine working the computer.-I'm glad that the bees are back in your yard.-I still only have a few honey bees in my yard. It's been like that for the last two years.

Anonymous said...

Whatever the cause, we don't seem to have as many incidents of CCD in New England.

Larry said...

Michelle: I don't know much about ccd but I do know what I've observed in my own yard.-I've always had a droves of honey bees visiting my gardens and especially going after the clover.-This year I might have seen an occasional single honey bee here and there but for the most part just bumblebees.