Saving the honeybee: conservation strategies and ecological impact

¶ … European Honey Bee (also known as the Apis mellifera) is a species of honeybee typically found in Europe, Western Asia, and Africa. The Apis mellifera is presently found around the world, as globalization played an important role in making it one of the most common bee species. The species is responsible for pollinating almost half of the plants used in the food industry and it is thus essential for society to get actively involved in providing the Apis mellifera with all the resources it needs in order to thrive. Unfortunately, in spite of the important role Apis Mellifera plays today in our society's development, this honeybee specie encountered a decrease in numbers. Diseases such as the colony collapse disorder have seriously affected the population of the Apis mellifera across the world.

Agriculture promotes the use of bees on account of how they pollinate a wide range of plants, making it possible for society to continue to have access to resources it has become accustomed to. The downside is that, as companies becoming increasingly obsessed with profits, most of those involved in agriculture fail to understand the negative impact that monoculture has on the bee populations. The fact that they no longer have a varied diet seriously harms bees and leads to diseases such as colony collapse disorder.

The Colony Collapse Disorder was first observed in the U.S. In 2006, when beekeepers saw whole colonies disappearing over night with for no apparent reason. The once well-organized systems in many hives became chaotic as worker bees simply vanished, while other bees were affected by a series of diseases. "Their sting glands had blackened with rare fungal infestations, deformed wing virus, black queen cell virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus, all being delicately handed over by varroa mites which ate their way into the worker." (Flynn 2013) All of these symptoms and the numbers showing their wide spread manifestation provide an explicit image of the critical condition bee hives are in today and, as a consequence, enable professionals and nonprofessionals alike to understand the gravity of the situation.

In order to fight the Colony Collapse Disorder, specialists have to form a united front that would involve environmentalist attitudes and less interest in profits associated with the bee industry. The limited availability of information on the topic makes it especially difficult for the whole society to come up with an effective response to the problem. Even though it might sound exaggerated, one of the few solutions in this case would be for people to give up on many activities that progressed rapidly in recent years and then focus on the effects that such responses would have on the manifestation of Colony Collapse Disorder.

While there is a wide range of possible reasons for which bee colonies were lost, one of the most credible ideas leads to synthetic poisons that beekeepers use with the purpose of fighting mites and other harmful insects. Substances in these pesticides can seriously affect a bee's ability to concentrate or to remember how to return to the hive. Furthermore, society's tendency to keep things neat have encouraged individuals to plant only particular types of crops and to remove plants such as dandelions or clover on account of design.