Disappearing Bees 2
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a recently-observed but little-understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a colony or hive abruptly disappear, and the colony dies. It began to be noticed in great numbers in the US in 2006 and 2007. It was originally speculated that disease was the devastating factor but now there are other thoughts ironically related to their most important function…agriculture.
Bill Ahaus, Secretary-Treasurer of the Idaho Honey Industry Association: “Most commercial beekeepers at least move their bees all around, mostly they’re pollinating specific crops, they get paid by the grower to bring bees in to pollinate the specific crops like apples, cherries, almonds, carrot seed or onion seed and the result is these bees are stressed by being moved…picked up from their location where they’re comfortable, they know the terrain, picked up and moved to a completely new place where they have to readjust and they have to subsist on basically one kind of pollen, it’s their main source of protein and if you’re getting only one source of protein in your diet, it’s pretty much like humans if you’re living on just corn flakes you’re probably not going to do very well as far as your general health and it’s the same thing for the bees.”
