The Collapse of Colony Collapse Disorder

About a decade ago the idea of the extinction of honeybees was of concern. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was the name it was given. The fear was that the number of bee colonies would continue to decline. Since bees are the primary pollinators of much of the US fruit and nut crop this was considered a really big deal.

Collapsing Colonies

Author Christopher Ingraham recently had an article in the Washington Post talking CCD. He points out that there are about 20% more colonies today than there were when CCD was discovered. He attributes the rise in colonies to more colonies being created. Lots of companies will now send beekeepers a new queen for $25 so they can split a colony and it will develop into 2 over the course of the next year. And with the price of honey doubling over the last l0 years beekeepers want to add the number of hives.

I want to go just a little deeper into the idea of colony collapse disorder and why Ingraham is both right and wrong at the same time.

CCD has many causes. The 2 most often cited are a parasitic mite called the varroa destructor mite and a virus that causes wing deformation. Other causes include increased travel by the beekeepers and new field pesticides. In reality it's not that well understood at this point. It seems like that many factors seem to occasionally come together to push a colony to oblivion.

The Speck in the Middle is a Varroa Destructor Mite

Ingraham's idea is that we're out of the woods on honeybee loss. The fact that the market has doubled both the price of honey and the pollination fees has made beekeepers more likely to continue to increase the number of hives. Increasing the number of hives offsets the increase losses during winter. But what he misses is just how precarious the beekeeping industry is right now.

CCD, at it's most basic was an increase in the number of colonies that die during the winter. The historic rate of colony death during winter was about 15%. In the early 2000's the rate of colony death doubled to around 30%. Ingraham is correct that beekeepers have been able cope with a string of losses in the range of 30% for more than a decade before falling to about 23% in the 2013-2014 year. A very distributed market with lots of small players has coped well by continuing to increase the number of new hives.

Bee Colony Loss by Year

That's probably not sustainable over the long term. By ordering a new queen and dividing the surviving colonies they're able to stay ahead of the colony deaths. The size of the average beekeeping operation is very small, averaging only 50 hives. If the rate of collapse increases further most small beekeepers will get out of the business.

Bees are very vulnerable to parasites, all social animals are. Parasites passed between individuals in the colony can kill the entire colony. Parasites are coming out of their home environments and moving to new hosts all the time. Modern transportation systems have allowed this fast spread worldwide. If CCD were caused by only a single source -- a parasite or virus solely causing the problem -- it would be easy to imagine the problems being behind us. Since the original CCD was a myriad of causes one or more new parasites or other stressors would be bad news, especially if the current stressors haven't yet been overcome.

But things seem to be getting better. The preliminary loss for the 2014-2015 year fell again to 22.3%. If it continues to fall or even further then Ingraham will be correct and the collapse of the industry will be averted. But if other factors will come into play the fact that the industry is dominated by small players can send it into a tailspin. Hopefully that doesn't happen.