Colony Collapse Disorder in Honey Bees by Ethan Krohn

Britannica

ethanbkrohn — 2024-04-14 23:45:35 UTC

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.

SciSHOW

ethanbkrohn — 2024-04-14 23:53:08 UTC

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.

EPA

ethanbkrohn — 2024-04-15 00:14:02 UTC

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

ScienceNews

ethanbkrohn — 2024-04-15 00:17:09 UTC

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)

Seeker

ethanbkrohn — 2024-04-15 01:27:00 UTC

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