One of our most heavily commented topics has been on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- 170 comments on this post alone. Many people regard bees as something of a 'canary in the cage', and that their abandoning their hives in vast numbers, denying their own instincts to leave their precious larvae behind (along with honey, that other creatures that would usually raid but now mysteriously avoid), is an ominous sign of an ecosystem under severe industrial stress.
So far my thoughts in the post above have remained current. Scientists have found that bees are dying from an almost AIDs-like virus -- suffering under multiple diseases from a weakened immune system. Additionally, some fingers are still pointing at Bayer’s imidacloprid pesticides that caused such a stir, and a ban, in France a few years ago. But most of the experts are blaming multiple causes, in combination adding up to an overshoot of the bee's stress threshold. Here's some recent coverage on this topic by 60 Minutes:
Restoring diversity by returning to organic systems is the most obvious solution to a critical problem that is unlikely to go away. We need to give pollinators a break.
Further Reading:
i am a surfer and i always see bees when i'm in the water. i actually come across more bees in the water than on land. they fly by as i sit out there, they land on the water surface, i see them washed up along the shore line, in hawaii, in new york, in france. i understand that one of the mysteries of this disaster is that the bee's simply disappear. i think they all end up in the ocean. maybe abandoning the hives has something to do with water. is water quality faltering? are the bees loosing their bearings? are they attracted to the salt? are there any ideas on this thought? i would love to hear a scientist's view.
Written in November 2008