Honey Bees Extinction

Extinction of Honey Bees
Honey bees are diminishing at a rapid rate due to Colony Collapse Disorder. This is a phenomenon that happens when all the worker bees leaving behind the Queen to fend for herself and the immature bees. Although many people do not view bees as an important part of our ecosystem they actually are. Honey bees are the most important insect for humankind because they pollinate around one third of the fruit and vegetables we eat every day. If we want to preserve them we must first know and understand what they actually do for us. Another big part is making sure beekeepers are well trained in order to bees to thrive. Commercial beekeepers move their bees throughout the United States to pollinate nations the food supply.

When a bee is affected by Nosema, they cannot “control their bowel movements; they are forced to defecate in and around the hive, leaving a distinct red-orange splatter”. The team of scientists looked for the parasite itself, but their results came to the same conclusion as did the previous pests, there was “no connection between Nosema … and CCD” (pp. 30-31). SAVE THE HONEY BEES! 12 Diana Cox-Foster who is the lead scientist for the study of the honey bee viruses came the conclusion that the bees who had CCD “’were harboring every known virus that we could detect using our methods,’” she explained. Cox-Foster theorized that because of the “rapid spread of colony collapse disorder and on the variety of infections found, … [that] a fastspreading and powerful virus had infected the bees”. The scientists discovered “that one of the known honey bee viruses was present in almost all CCD samples”, they also found that the “virus was absent from almost every healthy sample”. The name of the virus that they found is the “Israeli acute paralysis virus or IAPV”. IAPV provides

Cox-Foster then concluded that it is possible to have a hive in a controlled environment, that is, in a green house. The green house also serves the purpose of trapping the bees because bees that are infected with CCD are rarely found. Once the bodies of the bees are recovered, the scientists can do further research. The scientists came to the conclusion that IAPV is just a factor that causes CCD (Burns, 2010, pp. 36-38). Finally, Maryann Frazier, who is in charge of examining the chemicals that bees are exposed to, chemicals such as pesticides, and medicine used to treat the bees for parasites. The scientists found no significant connection between the chemicals and CCD. Frazier explains, “I do think [CCD is] … a combination of things that are just over the top. It’s like a cup that fills SAVE THE HONEY BEES! 13 up. Maybe poor nutrition is twenty-five percent and the mites and the pesticides fill up the rest” (pp. 45-47). Although many of the research on CCD was years prior to the book’s and other sources’ publication, it has contributed greatly to the amount of data that we know now about colony collapse disorder. The scientists say that they will continue to experiment