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The New York Times recently reported that scientists had figured out the cause of the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which has been killing off honeybees in droves. The study detailed in the story determined a fungus "tag-teaming with a virus" appeared to be the likely cause. CNN, however, had some bones to pick with the reporting because it didn't explain the funding of the study: Bayer, which happens to manufacture pesticides.
Scientists in the bee community have even more concerns about the research as it was reported. If nothing is done to eradicate CCD, honeybees are not going to survive in North America.
If the term Colony Collapse Disorder doesn't mean anything to you, then first a recap: honeybees, the great pollinators upon which most of our food supply depends, are dying off, and no one knows why. Literally entire hives will be gone overnight. What food is affected?
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Bee expert Dennis vanEngelsdorp explained: "Your apples, your cranberries, your nuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, some of your coffee [are all pollinated by bees]—and then indirectly, a lot of our dairy eats alfalfa and alfalfa seed production is reliant on honeybees. We need these bees if we want to produce that food. If we want to continue to eat apples, we need to have bees."
Leaving the media analysis behind, what does all this mean for the bees, and what we know—and don't know—about what's threatening them?
1. We know: Bees are sick, but the virus/fungus is only part of the problem
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Commenting on the questions over the recent study, vanEngelsdorp simplified what people know about the state of the bees in very basic terms: the study "simply confirms our other findings—sick bees are really sick—and they are not all sick from the same thing."
As he said last year, "We know that the bees are dying from the equivalent of the flu, and so they're getting bad virus infections. But it's not the same flu—there's different strains and different types of viruses bees can get. CCD bees have a lot more pathogens than healthy bees do... It's like heart disease in people—you don't get heart disease from one factor, it's a combination of factors that contribute to heart disease. So that's what we're trying to do now is figure out what factors combined contribute to CCD."
We don't know: What portion of bees this is affecting
Whether the virus-fungus mix is what's killing all the bees that are affected, as well as what the underlying cause is, are still largely unknown. To say the mystery is solved undoubtedly "overstates the case."
2. We know: The study is questionable
Not only because of the funding—the skepticism over which is detailed well in the CNN story, but in short: the lead researcher's company, Bee Alert Technology, "will profit more from a finding that disease, and not pesticides, is harming bees—but also because of the questionable science.
For Leonard Foster, the chief apiarist at the University of British Columbia, "My biggest concern is that the authors have not released some of the most essential data supporting their conclusions, and as far as I can tell from what they have reported, they may have made some rather serious (honest) mistakes when interpreting their data. The implications of this are really not clear, though... It may be that they are completely right or completely wrong, but they have not followed the normal protocols for reporting these kinds of results. There is a lot of uncertainty in the bee community over how to interpret their findings."
3. We know: Pesticides are not helping the bees
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Some researchers believe unwaveringly that pesticides are involved in causing CCD. The CNN story quotes entomology professor Dr. James Frazier saying his research has found that pesticides do affect bees—"absolutely, in multiple ways"—as well as chief USDA researcher Jeff Pettis saying in 2008 that "pesticides were definitely 'on the list' as a primary stressor that could make bees more vulnerable to other factors, like pests and bacteria."
We don't know: How bad the pesticides are
Pesticides are involved in CCD at least in some way, but the exact chain of cause and effect is not known. Are pesticides the majority of the problem? A small trigger?
One thing is certain: if more farms went organic, beekeepers would be talking less about their bees being "drunk"—the description used by one North Dakota beekeeper once a Bayer pesticide was sprayed on nearby fields. They were hanging outside the hives, and couldn't do their normal work.
And when bees don't work, they don't pollinate. And when they don't pollinate, we don't have a food supply as we know it.
More about bees and colony collapse disorder:
The Uncertain Future of Bees with National Bee Expert Dennis vanEngelsdorp
Bees in Crisis: the National Wildlife Federation Has Tips to Help
A Bad Winter and Pesticides Spell More Trouble for Honeybees
More "Save the Bees" Success: What Can Other Environmental Campaigners Learn?
