Why are Bees Vanishing?

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Why are bees vanishing? A combination of threats may explain declining populations

By Allison Pearce Stevens Photography: Rich Hatfield, Eric Smith, Christopher Connoly January 10, 2014 Originally Published in Student Science

The post office is buzzing as package after package of honeybees await delivery to their new homes. The tiny hooked feet of some worker bees cling to the screens on the sides of each wooden case. Other worker bees huddle around a small central cage containing their queen. Sorting and delivering packages of live honeybees isn’t the favorite task of postal workers. Still, it is a job they have to handle more and more often. That’s because beekeepers in the United States and Europe have been losing bees to a mysterious condition known as as colony collapse disorder, or CCD.

Kids are exposed to a wide variety of pesticides every day, the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) finds. The the AAP recommends taking steps to reduce pesticide exposure. One way is to eat organic foods. Another is to switch to integrated pest management, or IPM. This takes a natural approach to pest control.

Courtesy of Christopher Connolly, University of Dundee Each mail-order package contains the seed of a new honeybee colony to replace one that has vanished. “The bees appear fine in the fall,” says Michael Breed, a honeybee researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Then by midspring they're simply gone.”

Colony: A group of organisms that live close together or share a home (such as a hive or other nest site).

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