Of the many concerning developments in food and agriculture over recent years, one stands out as being particularly perplexing and disturbing. It is the widespread disappearance of honey bee colonies throughout the North America that has come to be known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Some beekeepers began to report unusually high losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. As many as 50 percent of all affected colonies demonstrated symptoms inconsistent with any known causes of honeybee death: sudden loss of a colony’s worker bee population with very few dead bees found near the colony. The queen and brood (young) remained, and the colonies had relatively abundant honey and pollen reserves. But hives cannot sustain themselves without worker bees and would eventually die. This combination of events resulting in the loss of a bee colony has been called Colony Collapse Disorder. Certain pesticides are harmful to bees. That’s why we require instructions for protecting bees on the labels of pesticides that are known to be particularly harmful to bees. This is one of many reasons why everyone must read and follow pesticide label instructions.

It has not been said that is is directly related to pesticides however, it shows us how delicate our ecosystems are and knowing how important bees are to our crops we must do everything we can to prevent the spread of CCD.