Honey Bee Crisis Research Paper

With the constant buzz across the country from phones and technology we sometimes miss the more important buzzes. The honey bee population in the United States has been declining at an alarming rate over the past decade. The United States should take action to help preserve the honey bee so that there doesn’t end up being a nationwide crop failure. Though many citizens don’t believe that the honey bee crisis will affect them, the reality may leave sting. With the decrease in honey bees and no one taking action, soon crops will fail and large amounts of our food sources will diminish. Without the honey bees, life won't be so sweet.

What’s the Buzz? Across the country scientists are noticing the death of bees and are puzzled as to why. This honey bee crisis has been a problem for over thirty years, but only brought to large attention in 2006. In the winter of 2005-2006, beekeepers across …show more content…
Other hives throughout the United States were experiencing unusual behavior from their worker bees. Not only were the worker bees dying but they were abandoning their hives and their queen. Leaving hives are unheard of, bee colonies are highly complex social structures that rely on everyone to do their job. The worker bees get the honey to store for the cold, barren winters, because there are fewer plants in the winter to get pollen from. Without these bees there is no one making food for the ‘children’ or the queen. Though uncommon for colonies to leave their hive, bees will leave if the queen decides to move. Completely abandoning the queen and the children is considered abnormal behavior and when this does happen it is known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) (McInnis). CCD has been a problem in the past but never as bad as it has been for the past ten years. In 2006 it was predicted that the lost of bees across the nation was over 30%, costing beekeepers thousands of dollars per hive to rebuild