Colony Collapse Disorder

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Artistic Impression of Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder refers to an emergent syndrome among honeybees that drastically depopulates affected hives. Around March 2007, the dramatic decline of honey bees began to be reported, primarily in North America and Europe. The reason for this honeybee morbidity is unclear. CCD is a very poorly understood phenomenon, and while promising hypotheses exist there is, as yet, no expert consensus.

European beekeepers observed this in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Germany; there have also been recent cases in Iran and Taiwan. It is nothing short of a pandemic, and when bees contribute nearly 80% of crop pollination, this does pose a rather large danger.

Symptoms of CCD are as follows:

Complete absence of adult bees in colonies with little or no build-up of dead bees in or around the colonies.
Presence of capped brood in colonies. Bees normally will not abandon a hive until the capped brood have all hatched.
Presence of food stores, both honey and bee pollen:
- i. which are not immediately robbed by other bees
- ii. whose attack by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle is noticeably delayed.
Precursor symptoms that may arise before the final colony collapse are:
- i. Insufficient workforce to maintain the brood that is present
- ii. Workforce seems to be made up of young adult bees
- iii. The Queen is present
- iv. The colony members are reluctant to consume provided food such as sugar syrup and protein supplement.

As mentioned earlier, in addition to producing honey, honey bees contribute approximatly 80% of all pollination to many types of food crops.

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