Colony Collapse Disorder and Pesticides

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Colony Collapse Disorder and Pesticides

From around the year 2006, many bee farmers in the U.S.A and some parts of Europe started reporting sharp declines in their bee stocks. The reason for this declining numbers was not known and therefore scientists named it colony collapse disorder (CCD). Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a not a very old phenomena and it became popular when large number of bee colonies started disappearing. The disappearing was mysterious since no dead bees were found in or around the beehives after a colony’s number was reported to have gone down or vanished. This prompted a lot of study and investigations to uncover the mystery and to establish possible remedies. Among the many reasons for the causes of the CCD was the use of harmful and dangerous pesticides. Timbrell (2002) provides a solid foundation on the effects of toxins in the body of animals with an aim of providing a scientific solution towards the problem. This paper focuses its study on these pesticides with an aim of establishing the effects of the toxins found in the insecticides that could be affecting the bees.

In CCD, honey bee colonies lose their workers under unclear circumstances (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 283). It is not unusual for bees to die or colonies to be lost, but the nature and extent reported in the year 2006 was alarming. Statistics gathered in the United States alone show that 50-90% of the bees have been lost so far, due to this scientific phenomenon (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 284).

Honeybees play a very major role in the pollination of plants and therefore these huge losses have become a serious concern. There are many reasons that have been floated and acclaimed to be behind CCD and they include pesticides, para...

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...re many and interrelated although some contribute more towards the phenomena than others. The governments of the affected countries must set aside funds that will help in carrying out research to establish the causes of CCD. Countries not affected by this phenomenon must also take all the necessary precautions to prevent their stock of bees from declining in numbers. If necessary steps are not taken as early as now, then many nations risk losing millions of plants due to lack of pollination and eventually we could be a famine stricken world.

Works Cited

Cox-Foster, D. L., Conlan, S., Holmes, E. C., Palacios, G., Evans, J. D., Moran, N. A.,… Quan, P. (2007). A metagenomic survey of microbes in honey bee colony collapse disorder. Science, 81(5848), 283-287.

Timbrell, J. (2002). Introduction to toxicology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

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