Executive Summary:
In October 2006, U.S. beekeeper David Hackenberg discovered that about 400 of his bees out of his 3,000 hives had completely disappeared. No bees were found dead inside or outside of their hives. They had simply disappeared. Now this was not due to some funny magic trick. But still the questions remained, where did the bees go and what caused them to leave? Once 2007 rolled around, more beekeepers were finding that the exact same situation was happening to them. This phenomena was soon called Colony Collapse Disorder. CCD occurred when no bees were found dead outside or inside the hive, there were not mites or parasite inside of the hive, and eventually the queen and her larva are abandoned. CCD is mainly caused by the use of systemic pesticides that once in a bee’s system, are persistent and harmful. These pesticides cause bees to lose their navigational abilities causing them to not be able to find their way back to their hive. Some ways to help prevent CCD is to eliminate monoculture agriculture all together. People can buy organic produce at their local markets, or grow their food themselves. This is the only way to keep the bees from going completely extinct.
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