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If Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder: A Literature Review, my recent guest post by Kyle Bailey, just whet your appetite for information about CCD, you should check out the book I happened upon this weekend at my local library: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis by Rowan Jacobsen. The causes of CCD are still not known, but Rowan does a great job of summarizing the 
There is so much information out there on Colony Collapse Disorder. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone summarized it in one place? Kyle Bailey, undergraduate in biology at Iowa State, has done just that. The following, posted with permission, is an up-to-date review of CCD research. It includes information from a variety of sources, from fact sheets to peer-reviewed journal articles. Introduction Honeybees (apis mellifera) are the primary pollinator available to agriculturalists in the United States. This makes them a critical part of US agriculture. Crops such as “almonds (82% of the world’s supply and 100% dependent on interstate pollinators); apples; cherries; blueberries; broccoli; carrots; cranberries; cucurbits like cucumber, melons, squash, pumpkins, and gourds” (Stankus 2008) are heavily reliant on honey bees for pollination. Traveling hives provided by commercial apiary services pollinates many of these crops. A current epidemic, called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), affecting honeybee hives throughout the US threatens the apiarist industry. In the US during 2006-2007 29% of beekeepers reported some loss to CCD with some losing up to 75% of their stock (Winfree, Williams, Dushoff, et al). CCD is characterized as a mysterious loss of worker bees in the hive. There are no corpses to be found as the bees apparently wander far from the hive to die. The hive generally has sufficient food stores to maintain the population. The hives also generally still have undeveloped brood stock. The new brood (as well as the queen) is of course doomed without any adult workers present to care for them and they soon die. Because the bees travel far from the hive there are no bodies to necropsy and attempt to determine a cause (Stankus 2008). This paper will explore the US economic and agricultural impacts of pollinator loss, and recent research into the causes of and potential solutions to CCD. The Rodale Institute, major proponent of organic agriculture, is offering a free online at-your-own-pace course that focuses on the transition from conventional to organic farming. They also have a calculator that farmers can use to find how much more (or less, I suppose) their farm can make if they transition to organic, given their specific situation. If you take the course, let me know what you think. Continue reading… Farmers have always been subject to ever changing weather, but this year seems especially bad. I wrote last week about the problems local farmers (and researchers) have been facing. The NY Times has an article showing that the weather hasn’t been much friendlier elsewhere. Farms in places as diverse as Australia and the Philippines aren’t off to a good start. Last year, the rice crop in Arkansas yielded a record 160 bushels an acre. This year, experts there say, 150 bushels will be an achievement.
“There’s no doubt about it, we’re not going to have the rice to export,” said Carl Frein of Farmers Marketing Service in Brinkley, Ark. “Poor countries like Haiti, I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Randy Kron (photo from NY Times) is an Indiana corn and soy farmer who won’t be able to plant this year. The article follows his story of fields that are too wet to plant. He concludes “I don’t know if this is the worst year we’ve ever had, but it’s moving up the list pretty quick.” Continue reading… Colony Collapse Disorder has been in and out of the media since 2006. With conspiracy theories and non-science abounding, it can be hard to separate truth from fiction.
In particular, she said that CCD is not caused by the rapture or the Russians. She puts cell phones and genetically engineered crops in the same category, choosing instead to focus on legitimate leads. She says that there are many reasons why their group is not looking into these as possible causes, but one reason sticks out: some Amish and organic beekeepers whose hives are isolated from genetically engineered crops, many pesticides, and cell phones in the case of the Amish have experienced CCD, while some conventional beekeepers have not. In other words, there isn’t a common thread connecting colonies that have collapsed. Despite the fact that scientists like Dr. Cox Foster have spoken on the lack of legitimacy of these theories, people continue to write about them, such as this example from the always creative Global Research. I won’t pick the article apart due to time constraints, but wanted to show the range of views. A lot of mainstream articles have less extreme views, but few if any make an effort to debunk the incorrect theories. Instead, they reinforce them! Karl over at Inoculated Mind has a nice post summarizing some issues with the cell phone and GMO theories that’s over a year old. If only the reporters would research as he did. There is abundant evidence that the Bt protein Cry1Ab doesn’t affect non-target insects. A meta-analysis from Jan 2008 of 25 independent studies found “that Bt Cry proteins used in genetically modified crops commercialized for control of lepidopteran and coleopteran pests do not negatively affect the survival of either honey bee larvae or adults in laboratory settings.” A meta-analysis from May 2008 of a public database found no significant effect on type or number of arthropods in Bt and non-Bt crops. They did find, as have many others, that various types of insecticides decreases the type and number of arthropods. A quick lit search did come up with a June 2008 study that showed decreased learning ability in bees that were force fed syrup containing very high concentrations of Bt that are not found in the field. This data might indicate the need for more research on bee physiology, but doesn’t mean that Bt isn’t safe for bees in the field. Now that we know what it’s not, I’ll share with you what Dr. Cox Foster thinks are the most likely causes and solutions…
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