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Since the 1980s, honey bee health has been on the decline in the United States. The main culprits have been new diseases and pests. However, in the last couple of years, the trend has increased dramatically. Honey bees are disappearing with no apparent cause, and the problem is not limited to the United States. Europe and China bee colonies are showing the same trend.

Why Honey Bees are so Important

Honey bees are responsible for more than just making honey. These buzzy little busybodies are used to pollinate over 130 different crops, which total more than $15 billion worth of U.S. crops. (Source) Putting money aside, honey bees are a vital link in producing the food we eat. They pollinate fruit, nut and vegetable crops that we consume directly. Honey bees also pollinate grass and fodder crops that are used to raise meat. Pretty much the only plants that honey bees do not pollinate are corn and wheat, which are pollinated by the wind.

The commercial beekeeping industry is just as important as the bees themselves. Since most large-scale fruit and vegetable operations cannot rely on native bee colonies to pollinate all of their crops, beekeepers transport their hives to fields, release the bees and let them work their magic on the fields. With honey bee numbers decreasing and food demand increasing, growers who rely on honey bees to pollinate their crops, and those of us who eat those crops, could be in trouble if the trend is not reversed.

Where Are All the Bees Going?

In any given year, beekeepers can expect a certain number of the bees to not survive due to disease or environmental conditions. This is just the way of things. Losses are usually around five or ten percent. However, in 2006, beekeepers reported losing anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their hives. (Source)

Since then, the losses continue to stay in the 30 to 40 percent range, and it’s not just harsh winter that is killing off the bees. If that were the case, there would be bee bodies left behind; there aren’t. Entire honey bee colonies are being abandoned. Adult honey bees are simply disappearing while immature bees and honey remain. In 2007 the phenomenon was named colony collapse disorder (CCD). Examinations of the abandoned colonies revealed signs of disease, fungus and parasites but no dead adult bees.

What is Being Done to Save the Honey Bee?

Researchers at the USDA are looking into CCD in an effort to determine the source. So far, they have narrowed it down to the following list of possible causes:

• Climate
• Diseases
• Fungus
• Parasites
• Pesticides
• Stress
• Viruses

Basically, they’ve narrowed it down to everything, which means they don’t know what’s causing the bee colonies to collapse, but pathogens, parasites and environmental stresses are high on the list. Currently, researchers are trying to re-create CCD on healthy colonies by using various combinations of the potential culprits.

What does this mean for the rest of us? Well, if the honey bees keep disappearing, we’ll probably have even more food-scarcity problems than we do now, and since it’s happening in Europe and China, too, CCD is a large-scale issue. Hopefully, researchers in one of the arenas will figure out what’s causing honey bees to disappear before there aren’t any honey bees left to wonder about.