CCD The Disappearing Disease

In early February, 2007 a group of North Carolina honeybee experts met at "Cloud Nine", ( www.cloud9relaxation.com ) in the Fairview area of Fletcher, for dinner. This was an informal get together prior to a weekend advanced beekeeping class. Very quickly, the after dinner conversation turned into a discussion on the "new" affliction facing honeybees in the United States. This is the first some of us had heard of what we now commonly call Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD, but within weeks it would be in all the media. It is called CCD as a way to describe the condition we do not yet understand. I sat in bewilderment as story after story came from our state bee inspector's mouth. He told us what was known about the symptoms and how we have no knowledge of the cause. I quickly checked what he was saying against observations I had made in my own hives and felt some relief that I had not experienced this in my apiary. However, I listened carefully wondering if I may soon see it also.


The bees seem to be disappearing from the hive or leaving a very small cluster of bees on a few frames. There are no or very few dead bees in the hive. Capped brood is left behind with no nurse bees to care for them. Food sources of honey and pollen are present, but after the bees in the hive disappear, other bees do not immediately rob out the stores as expected. Even pests such as wax moths and small hive beetles do not come in and set up shop as expected. It continued to Chuck Norton, who writes for American Bee Journal, who gave the facts that are known about the disorder at that time. We all asked the obvious questions trying to come to a quick answer about the causes and none were found. We did however come up with many theories, possibilities and items that need research even in this small group. Nationally that trend is continuing but researchers and funding are at a premium as such a huge field of information needs to be researched.

Then we heard from some local Western North Carolina commercial beekeepers that had seen CCD or some similar variance in their hives. I listened in horror as some commercial beekeepers told about their experiences and those of their peers this past winter. I heard figures like 40%, 50%, 60% and even 80% losses in their commercial apiaries. What would this mean for the upcoming apple pollination contracts they held? What about strawberries and blueberries? I got choked up when a very respected commercial beekeeper sat back with a look of hopelessness and slowly said, "My bees are dying. They are dying and I don't know what to do."
Then when I addressed another beekeeper as a commercial beekeeper and asked what hobbyist and smaller beekeepers could do to help commercial beekeepers like him, he replied, "I am no longer a commercial beekeeper. I am now a hobbyist beekeeper. I don't have enough hives left to be considered a commercial beekeeper." I was really getting down when a case example was discussed about a commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania whose hive numbers went from 2000 last fall to less than 700 in February. (I later learned he only had 7 survive the winter.) Edd Buchanan, master beekeeper and member of the CCD task force in NC, mentioned he remembered a similar but smaller die off of bees in the 1950's. He also mentioned that records show something like this happened in the 1800's too. Is this cyclical? If so, the cycle seems to be getting shorter.

My suggestions for ways small beekeepers can help the situation is to NOT give up. We need the honeybees! Hobbyist and small beekeepers can afford to experiment, and try things that commercial beekeepers whose livelihood depend on the bees can not. I am personally selecting queens from my best survivor stock and propagating those in an effort to bring better genetics into the equation. I also am looking for surviving bees in the wild to save their genetics before we loose something we did not even know we had. The feral or (wild) bee populations have almost vanished. Any that are left may hold some answers we need to conquer this issue using genetics of resistant bees. Everyone needs to take notes on their bees and make observations so that can potentially be passed on to researchers. I recommend if you are interested in bees, take a beekeeping course and get involved by keeping a few hives. Several of us in the Buncombe County Chapter are participating in a co-operative breeding program. Local queen breeder Mike Singleton and commercial beekeeper Greg Rogers are helping us by putting on small seminars to teach us how to be successful with our breeding programs. All beekeeping organizations must get involved to do their part in the effort to find needed answers to this perplexing problem.

As for answers to our questions, we still have few even months later. As for questions, those keep adding up by the hour. Though the beekeeping community is down, the one thing I did not hear from the Buncombe County group was quit. I know this will undoubtedly put some commercial beekeepers over the edge financially though. As for the NC apple crop, the Easter weekend freeze sort of made pollination of that crop a moot point. Likewise for blueberries and strawberries as well as SC peaches. Now, even the honey crop our bees depend on is threatened. The major producer of nectar,which bees collect to make honey, in NC is Tulip Poplar and it appears this crop is also going to be extremely small or non-existent as a result of the freeze. No honey means feeding our bees to keep them from starving. This can get very expensive very quickly. Fruit producers are not the only ones who will have to raise prices to try and make ends meet.

Though lots of theories of causes for CCD were raised at the meeting at "Cloud Nine", even more have been raised since. The theme seems to include causes such as pesticides, genetic modifications of crops, parasites, more severe forms of our bee diseases. Even theories of Cell Phones as the cause have been put out there,though that one has been debunked. The main thing is to not rush to judgment on any of these until we have the proof. We do need to get the proof as quickly as possible and try to set the beekeeping industry right before it totally goes under. Albert Einstein once said if we loose the honeybee, mankind would have only 4 years left. That point has been debated, but it sure would make for a very different life for mankind. Could the honeybee be the proverbial Canary in the coal mine? If so, this issue may be more urgent and complex than we even know.

I have also noticed that much attention has been paid to fruit and crop growers in regards to disaster assistance. This is very much needed as the agriculture structure we depend on in America to put food on the table is much more fragile than most people realize. I also believe some sort of relief needs to be offered our commercial beekeepers should they need it, as we can ill afford to loose anymore beekeepers. In fact, we desperately need to encourage young beekeepers to get involved in this profession as our ranks are aging fast. A program to support and develop new young beekeepers is needed. The Buncombe County Chapter has taken a first step in this regard by offering a hive of bees each year to a promising young beekeeper. This is called the Edd Buchanan Scholarship hive and the first one was given at the end of out annual free bee school in January. Other beekeepers, or potential beekeepers who are interested, can sign up for next year's course and you could win one of our scholarship hives. (we gave out 12 this year thanks to corporate sponsors generous donations). You also do not have to be a beekeeper to be a member and participant in the Buncombe County Beekeepers Chapter or a beekeeping organization in your area. Membership dues are reasonable and much is done to promote and protect beekeeping in Buncombe County and beyond.

Please do your part and support your local honey producers when you buy your honey products. We are also under siege from foreign imports of honey which have flooded the market and made it difficult to sell our quality product at a profit large enough to make business work. Call and write your legislators, both state and national, to tell them to support research and assistance programs for our honeybee industry. Be bee friendly by thinking before you use pesticides. Honeybees are at our mercy when we use pesticides on crops, yards or even trees in our yard. Educate yourself then educate others about this very important insect. Visit the Buncombe County Beekeepers web site to learn more about bees. (www.wncbees.org) Donations to assist in funding our free bee school as well as scholarship hives are welcome. Scholarship hive sponsors and bee school sponsors do get mention at our school, in our newsletter and on our web site. Even a small part you play may make a difference as we appears our task may not be as easy as looking for a needle in a haystack, we may be looking for a microbe in an ocean.