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Britannica did an amazing job of really covering all impact of CCD and the effects that it can have. It starts out by describing how CCD is caused when there is a lack of healthy adults within the hive. It isn't known exactly what causes this, but it is believed that it has to do with the bee's ability to navigate. The article goes on to talk about the economic impact of CCD and what scientists believe could be attributing to the increase in cases of CCD.

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colony collapse disorder (CCD), disorder affecting honeybee colonies that is characterized by sudden colony death, with a lack of healthy adult bees inside the hive. Although the cause is not known, researchers suspect that multiple factors may be involved. The disorder appears to affect the adult bees' ability to navigate. They leave the hive to find pollen and never return. Honey and pollen are usually present in the hive, and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases the queen and a small number of survivor bees may remain in the brood nest. CCD is also characterized by delayed robbing of the honey in the dead colonies by other, healthy bee colonies in the immediate area, as well as slower than normal invasion by common pests, such as wax moths and small hive beetles. The disorder appears to affect only the European honeybee (Apis mellifera).

Colony loss and economic impact

The unexplained loss of honeybee colonies that came to be known as CCD was first reported in the fall of 2006 by a commercial beekeeper from Pennsylvania, U.S., who was overwintering his colonies in Florida. (Subsequent investigations suggested that beekeepers had experienced unexplained colony losses for at least the previous three years; similar losses had been reported previously as well, including in the late 19th century and in various decades of the 20th century.) By February 2007 several large commercial migratory beekeeping operations in the United States had reported cases of CCD, with some operators suffering the loss of 50-90 percent of their colonies. Many of these larger operations were overwintering their colonies in California, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas. By late February 2007 some nonmigratory operations located in the mid-Atlantic region and the Pacific Northwest of the United States also had reported the loss of more than 50 percent of their colonies. The absence of dead bees in the affected hives made initial investigations difficult and inconclusive. That same year, other countries, including Canada, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, France, and Switzerland, also reported substantial losses of honeybees. From 2006 to 2011 total annual colony losses in the United States averaged around 33 percent; beekeepers cited CCD as the cause of roughly one-third of those losses.

Beekeeping is a critical component of modern agriculture. CCD not only threatens the beekeeping operations that provide pollination service and honey production but also has the potential for crippling the production of the many crops that are dependent on honeybees for pollination. In the United States, beekeepers provide pollination service for more than 90 commercially grown crops, including many fruits and vegetables. The economic value of U.S. crops that benefit from honeybee pollination has been estimated at $15 billion annually. In 2006 the California almond export crop alone was valued at $1.9 billion and required more than one million bee colonies for pollination (out of a total of about 2.6 million colonies in the United States). With the number of available colonies for crop pollination in the country in decline, the beekeeping industry faced a tremendous challenge in meeting the demand for pollination services.

Suspected causes

The Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture organized efforts to address the CCD crisis through surveys and data collection, samples analysis, and mitigation and preventive measures. A variety of possible causes of CCD were suggested. They included chemical contamination of colony food stores or beeswax; poisoning from pesticides, including nicotine-based insecticides known as neonicotinoids (the use of which has been restricted in some countries); possible lack of genetic diversity in colonies; and infection of colonies by pathogens or parasites, including known honeybee parasites such as the single-celled microsporidians (parasitic fungus) Nosema ceranae and N. apis and the invasive varroa mite ( Varroa destructor).

Multiple studies have suggested that CCD might be the result of simultaneous exposure to a combination of two or more pathogens or stressors, in which the combination of stressors has a synergistic effect. Bee colonies are commonly found to be infested with pathogens and parasites, and the investigation of the interactions of all the possible causative agents has proved to be a challenge for bee researchers. Pathogens that have been implicated in CCD include acute bee paralysis virus, Ascosphaera apis (chalkbrood disease), black queen cell virus, chronic bee paralysis virus, deformed wing virus, invertebrate iridescent virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus, Kashmir bee virus, Nosema species, Paenibacillus larvae (American foulbrood), and sacbrood virus. Many of those pathogens are present in increased abundance in hives affected by CCD, and varroa mites are capable of transmitting deadly honeybee viruses, including black queen cell virus and deformed wing virus. However, no pathogens have been found definitively to cause the disorder. Another parasite that may play a role in CCD is the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis. A known parasite of bumblebees, A. borealis has been identified as an emerging threat to honeybees. It was first reported to infect honeybees in 2012, when it was found to be associated with hive abandonment. Honeybees from parasitized hives often are infected with Nosema species and deformed wing virus. Many phorid larvae that emerge from dead bees also are infected with those pathogens, suggesting that phorid flies may serve as a reservoir for the agents, transmitting them to bees upon parasitization.

Pesticides implicated in CCD include the neonicotinoids imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam. Although no causal link has been established, the agents have been associated with atypical honeybee behaviour and weakened immune function, which may worsen preexisting pathogen infection. For example, sublethal exposure to thiamethoxam appears to impair bees' homing ability, with consequences for colony survival, and exposure to imidacloprid and clothianidin may suppress immune function and promote the proliferation of deformed wing virus in infected honeybees. In addition, an antimicrobial agent known as fumagillin that is commonly used to control Nosema species has been shown to affect the physiology of European honeybees at concentrations that are ineffective against N. ceranae, the most invasive of the microsporidian pathogens. Because honeybees raised in brood combs with high levels of pesticide residue show increased susceptibility to N. ceranae, there is concern that pesticides and other agents, including fumagillin, could be contributing to an increase in the occurrence of N. ceranae infection.

The full sequence of the honeybee genome, which was published in late 2006, was a technological advance that could conceivably help in discovering the underlying cause of CCD in honeybees. Knowledge of the sequence made available new molecular approaches and introduced honeybee genomics to the investigation of CCD. It also enabled scientists to study the impact of the possible causal agents on specific genes and honeybee colony health. Likewise, the advance might help identify new pathogens in honeybees and unravel the complex effects of multiple combinations of pathogens and environmental toxins.

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Colony collapse disorder (CCD) | Definition, Causes, Effects, & Facts

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Colony collapse disorder (CCD), disorder affecting honeybee colonies that is characterized by sudden colony death, with a lack of healthy adult bees inside the hive. Although the cause is not known, researchers suspect that multiple factors may be involved. The disorder appears to affect the adult

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This fascinating video begins by addressing how the media use to be very doom and gloom about bees, mentioning how they were dying off at alarming rates and emphasizing how important they are. But just as quickly as these news outlets reported on their deaths they stopped. The video mentions how the problem hasn't fully been resolved however the cases of CCD have declined. The video again highlights how we aren't sure on what causes CCD and highlights that it is so difficult to research because when a hive is affected by CCD the dead bees just aren't at the hive. While cases of CCD are down, bees are still in danger and still need our help due to their importance in food production.

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This insightful article posted by the EPA again does a really great job of summarizing what CCD is. Something that I found very insightful is how the this article talks about the discovery of CCD. During the winter of 2006-2007 bee farmers were noticing alarmingly high hive loss. The hives looked healthy, however there were not many dead bees, the hive was empty and the queen and brood along with the honey were still present as they would be in a healthy hive. In conclusion it also highlights how not all dead bees mean CCD. The EPA has also created the CCD Steering Committee to help implement the Colony Collapse Disorder Action Plan

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This article is very insightful as it went more in detail about what is causing CCD. Many of the articles I found to brush over the subject while this article really sought to give some answers to the problem. Many of the common pests and diseases such as mites, beetles, fungi or deformed wing virus were indicating a pattern with CCD. The article indicates that it is more than likely a cause of several things. The first being a weakening in the hive from some other stressor like pesticide exposure as well as a disease, in this case it is thought it could be Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. Again, the article mentions that even though CCD is not as prevalent today bees are still at risk through poor nutrition, pesticides, pathogens and parasites (the 4 p's)

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It was one of the flashiest mysteries in the news about a decade ago - honeybee workers were vanishing fast for no clear reason. To this day, that puzzle has never been entirely solved, researchers acknowledge.

And maybe it never will be. Colony collapse disorder, or CCD, as the sudden mass honeybee losses were called, has faded in recent years as mysteriously as it began. It's possible the disappearances could start up again, but meanwhile bees are facing other problems.

CCD probably peaked around 2007 and faded since, says Jeff Pettis, who during the heights of national curiosity was running the Beltsville, Md., honeybee lab for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's research wing. And five years have passed since Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who studies bee health at the University of Maryland in College Park, has seen a "credible case" of colony collapse.

Beekeepers still report some cases, but Pettis and vanEngelsdorp aren't convinced such cases really are colony collapse disorder, a term that now gets used for a slew of things that are bad for bees. To specialists, colony collapse is a specific phenomenon. An apparently healthy colony over the course of days or a few weeks loses much of its workforce, while eggs and larvae, and often the queen herself, remain alive. Also food stores in collapsing colonies don't get raided by other bees as a failing colony's treasures usually do.

"I think I know what happened," says Pettis, now in Salisbury, Md., consulting on pollinator health. His proposed scenario for CCD, like those of some other veterans of the furor, is complex and doesn't rest on a single exotic killer. But so far, no experiment has nailed the proof.

On a suspect's trail

Looking back, Pettis realizes he had heard about what might have been early cases of CCD, described as colonies "just falling apart," for several years before the phenomenon made headlines. Then in November 2006, Pennsylvania beekeeper David Hackenberg, as usual, sent his colonies to Florida for the winter. They arrived in fine shape. Soon after, however, many buzzing colonies had shrunk to stragglers. Yet there were no dire parasite infestations and no dead bee bodies in sight.

"It was, 'OK, something weird just happened,' " remembers Jay Evans of the USDA's honeybee lab in Beltsville. "It looked like a 'flu,' something that kind of swept through miraculously fast."

No single menace, however, could be tightly linked to every sick colony, or only to sick colonies. Varroa mites, small hive beetles, Nosema fungi, deformed wing virus, unusual signs of pesticide exposure, for instance -screening techniques at the time just weren't picking up a clear pattern in any of these bee bedevilments.

"People were following this story like crazy," Pettis says. The bees' unexplained plight prompted a national outbreak of amateur entomology. "There were people saying, 'Why aren't you doing more with jet contrails?' There were 'alien abductions.' And the rapture - the bees were being called home."

Entomologists were hounded by the press, not to mention leaned on by politicians and pursued by would-be entrepreneurs. "For me, what made it rewarding," Pettis says, "was that people were learning about the value of pollination."

A Columbia University researcher who had identified pathogens in mysterious human disease outbreaks took a crack at the problem. Ian Lipkin had never worked with bees, but he and his lab collaborated with entomologists and other bee specialists to search for any genetic signature of a pathogen appearing only in collapsing colonies. The approach of searching through mass samples, with their messy traces of gut microbes and random parasites, is now familiar as metagenomics. At the time, this way of searching for pathogens was groundbreaking, says collaborator Diana Cox-Foster, then at Penn State. The resulting paper, in Science , pointed to several viruses, especially the previously obscure Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus , or IAPV ( SN: 9/8/07, p. 147 ).

That emphasis on IAPV, which got a lot of attention at the time, hasn't held up well. "It's not 100 percent ruled out," Evans says. But the explanation's main problem is shared by other threats proposed as a single cause of CCD. After finding IAPV or another presumed single menace in sick bees in one place, he says, "you could go to other apiaries that were collapsing and not find it, or you could find it in healthier colonies."

As an apiary inspector for Pennsylvania at the time, vanEngelsdorp monitored for signs of collapse in over 200 hives. "We tried to watch it happen but we couldn't," he says. None collapsed. Even finding the sickest bees in collapsing colonies was a challenge. Doomed bees presumably flew off in multiple directions, and birds or other scavengers usually found the bees before scientists could.

A gang of killers

Pettis now sees the disaster as a two-step process. Various stressors such as poor nutrition and pesticide exposure weakened bees so much that a virus, maybe IAPV, could quickly kill them in droves. Evans, too, sees various stressors mixing and matching. When pressed for his best guess, he says "all of the above."

Cox-Foster has managed to re-create part of the process, the vanishing effect that marked the end for stressed bees. When she infected honeybee colonies in a greenhouse with a virus, the sick bees left the hive but were trapped by the greenhouse walls before dispersing too far to be found. (Of course, this experiment doesn't demonstrate how colonies with no sign of a virus died.)

That tendency for sick bees to leave hives, vanEngelsdorp proposes, could have developed as a hygiene benefit. "Altruistic suicide," as social-insect biologists call it. Flying away from the colony could minimize a sick bee's tendency to pass disease to the rest of the family.

Still losing bees

Colony losses each year are still running higher than beekeepers say would be acceptable (gray bar). Even though hives can be split so numbers eventually build up again, the slowdown and expense raise the costs of pollination.

Today, hive losses remain high even with CCD waning or gone, according to national surveys by the Bee Informed Partnership, a nonprofit bee health collaboration. Beekeepers typically note that they either expect or can tolerate annual losses between 15 and 20 percent of their total number of colonies. Yet from April 2016 until March 2017, losses across the United States ran at about a third of hives. And that was a so-called good year, the second-lowest loss in the seven years with data on annual losses.

Classic CCD may not be much threat these days, but the "four p's" - poor nutrition, pesticides, pathogens and parasites - are, says Cox-Foster, now at a USDA lab for pollinating insects in Logan, Utah. While honeybees aren't likely to go extinct, these threats to the beekeeping industry boost pollination costs, which could affect food prices.

Coping with the four p's may not fire the imaginations of armchair entomologists. But it's more than enough of a challenge for the bees.

Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us at feedback@sciencenews.org | Reprints FAQ

A version of this article appears in the February 3, 2018 issue of Science News.

Susan Milius is the life sciences writer, covering organismal biology and evolution, and has a special passion for plants, fungi and invertebrates. She studied biology and English literature.

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The mystery of vanishing honeybees is still not definitively solved

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The case has never been fully closed for colony collapse disorder, and now bees face bigger problems.

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This video emphasized the importance of bees in our ecosystem. This video was posted about 10 years ago and mentions how the hive loss was twice the acceptable natural amount of Die out, during this time there was fear that there wouldn't be enough bees to meet the countries pollination needs. 90% of all flowers crops in the US are pollinated by bees, or roughly a 1/3 of everything we eat. Bees also pollinate food crops for livestock which could result in a food shortage for our livestock industries. Again, we do not have the exact answers as to what causes CCD, and even though it is less of an issue this video again highlights the importance of protecting our bee populations