When Life Gives You Lemons, Thanks the Bees “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” (Eccleston) This widely cited quote has been attributed to the famous genius, Albert Einstein. He briefly touches upon the importance of bees to planet earth. 75% of all flowering plants, including most food crops, rely on pollinators, like the honeybee, for fertilization. Apples, strawberries, broccoli, carrots, cherries, coffee, blueberries, onions, and celery are all commonly used in most people’s diets. These are just a few examples of foods pollinated by the vital honeybee. (Academic OneFile) Honeybees are extremely
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When CCD occurs, seemingly normal adult bees would disappear and never return home. Typically, honeybees will not leave the colony until the immature honey bees have “fully emerged from their honeycomb cells”. A healthy hive, normally, has an approximated 60,000 residents at a time. (Academic OneFile) Most colonies consist of 20 or 30,000 sterile adult females known as workers who carry out necessary tasks of the colony such as securing the hive, fetching pollen and nectar, and processing that pollen and nectar into honey. (Berenbaum) When CCD attacks, colonies that seemed completely ordinary may only contain a couple of inhabitants within a few weeks. Finding causes for CCD are very challenging because there are not many corpses left behind to be assessed by researchers. A labor pool composed mainly of adolescent bees, who cannot productively manage the remains of the hive, is a hint that CCD may already be lurking. Beekeepers have been reporting declines in adults, mainly foragers, who were deserting the hive. (Berenbaum) Also, discovering the queen outside of the hive is another indicator that the hive may be plagued.
When CCD occurs, seemingly normal adult bees would disappear and never return home. Typically, honeybees will not leave the colony until the immature honey bees have “fully emerged from their honeycomb cells”. A healthy hive, normally, has an approximated 60,000 residents at a time. (Academic OneFile) Most colonies consist of 20 or 30,000 sterile adult females known as workers who carry out necessary tasks of the colony such as securing the hive, fetching pollen and nectar, and processing that pollen and nectar into honey. (Berenbaum) When CCD attacks, colonies that seemed completely ordinary may only contain a couple of inhabitants within a few weeks. Finding causes for CCD are very challenging because there are not many corpses left behind to be assessed by researchers. A labor pool composed mainly of adolescent bees, who cannot productively manage the remains of the hive, is a hint that CCD may already be lurking. Beekeepers have been reporting declines in adults, mainly foragers, who were deserting the hive. (Berenbaum) Also, discovering the queen outside of the hive is another indicator that the hive may be plagued.