The mass disappearance of honeybees: an eco-whodunnit

The massive decline in the global honeybee population has been declared a catastrophe. Bees contribute more than £26 billion (about €30 billion or $40 billion) to the global economy and an inestimable – and invaluable – degree of variety to what we eat and wear: about 90% of all commercial crops alone depend on honeybees for pollination. All sorts of fruit, vegetables, as well as coffee, cattle feed (there goes your burger), and cotton (there go you knickers) could become exorbitantly expensive or, in a worst-case scenario, practically disappear, if there aren’t enough bees around to pollinate them.

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The current-case scenario is bad enough, and something of an eco-whodunnit: although last year both in the US and in parts of Europe the number of professionally managed honey-bee colonies declined by at least 30% what exactly causes the disappearance of bees and, in many cases, how they disappear remains a puzzle. Many beekeepers report that they simply find the hives empty. Trying to solve the mystery of a murder without a body is notoriously difficult, and in the case of mass bee disappearances the culprit has yet to be identified. Potential suspects include pesticides, harsh winters, rainy summers, an array of parasites, bacteria, and viruses, as well as the decline in the numbers of trained beekeepers, and the often poor practices of amateur beekeepers.

In the US, the presence of 121 different pesticides found in samples of bees, pollen, and beeswax is a strong indication that the irresponsible use of pesticides, which, apparently, farmers often tend to mix into lethal cocktails, is likely to be a key cause for the mass disappearance of bees.

Medieval beekeepers. Details unknown (image source).

Meanwhile, while Europe and the US are facing a potentially acute agrarian crisis, the number of honey-bee colonies worldwide has increased by around 45% over the last 50 years, according to the FAO. Not that this is much good to either Europe or the US. What’s more, if pesticides and infection are indeed what kills bees, it’s only a matter of time before the problem spreads elsewhere. In Japan, where bee imports were banned in an effort to prevent the spread of infections, bee theft is on the increase. In 2009 alone, more than two million honey-bees were stolen, and a swarm now fetches more than £260 (€300 or $400).

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Facts and figures from Science Daily, the BBC, and the Guardian.