1. The
Disappearance
of
Honey Bees

2. Honey Bees
Background
 Caste & individual roles
Colony Collapse Disorder
 Symptoms
Theories
 6 theories for CCD
Why should you care?

3. Caste
40,000-80,000 within 1 hive

4. Drone
 Around 300 drones in a hive
 Only job = mate with queen
 Big eyes
 No stinger
 September drones are
kicked out of hive
 Life expectancy =
90 days

5. Worker
 Only bees most people see
 Females that are not sexually developed
 Forage for food
 Build, clean, maintain, protect/guard hive
 Circulate air – too hot or too cold
 Take care of queen and larvae

6. Queen
 Selected by worker bees in larvae stage
 Fed “royal jelly” – secretion from the glands on
the heads of worker bees – allows sexual maturity
 Develops in queen cell – larger – vertical not
horizontal
 Mates once with 13-18 drones

7. Queen
 1 queen per hive
 Long abdomen for laying
eggs
 Up to 3,000 eggs a day
 Mother of all bees in hive
 Produces pheromones
 3-5 years

8. Disappearance
 Hackenberg Apiaries – Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
 Family owned business – 50 years old
 Transports over 2,200 hives throughout US
 Reported in October 2006
 Lost 1,900 of 2,900 hives

10. Brett Adee lost 2 billion bees in 2
weeks

11. Colony Collapse Disorder
Symptoms:
No dead bees around
No mites or pathogens to
explain problem
Queen and young are left
behind

12. Theory 1 : Artificial Food Substitutes
Made of high fructose corn syrup
Collecting nectar and pollen from GM foods generation
after generation

13. Theory 2 : Artificial Insemination
Commercial beekeepers kill queen every couple of months
Replace with artificial queen bee in cage

14. Theory 3 : Monocultures
Don’t exist in nature
Everything blooms at once – limited
resource
Pests love monocultures

15. Theory 4 : Pesticides
 Made for chemical warfare WW1
 Pesticides sprayed – beekeepers move hives

16. Theory 5 : Systemic pesticides
Gaucho – made by Bayer
Can’t move hives
Same thing in France 1994
EPA – only
considers affects
on adults

17. Theory 6 : Synergy
Multiple factors

18. Forced Migratory
Can’t forage --Fed artificial foods
Can’t maintain hive temp
Lose 10% of queens each move
Increases need for artificial queens

19. Importing Honey Bees
Bees from Australia imported 4 years ago for U.S.
almond crop
Transporting bees via airplane
Pressure
Time change

20. Why should you care?
 Bees are an indicator of environmental quality
 Pollinate 1/3 of the food we consume
 Pollinate $15 billion worth of food annually in U.S
 35 % of our fruits and veggies are imported
 More than 95% of the food we eat
is treated with pesticides
 1 billion pounds of toxic chemicals
used annually on agriculture

21. Thank you 