. According to Australian and American scientists, stress is leading young bees out of school and into the wild, which is why they have seen their population plummet over the last decade. This study was done by scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), Washington University, Macquarie University, Sydney and the University of Sydney. It has been published in Proceedings of National Academy of Science. CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder is when bees die and there are not enough bees to continue pollinating. However, the queen bees and other immature bees remain. This is dangerous for bee colonies around the world and affects their ability of to pollinate human food crops. The decline in honeybee population worldwide is likely due to the excessive foraging of juveniles. CCD is a growing problem that worries researchers and farmers around the globe. There was not much evidence to support the existence of CCD. Stressed colonies of bees start to forage too young When the colony becomes stressed from disease or lack of food, bees begin to forage at an earlier age. A bee begins foraging at two to three weeks of age. Clint Perry from QMUL’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences attached radio trackers and monitored the bees until death. The researchers found that bees who began foraging early in their lives were more likely to succumb during the first flight. The older bees had more foraging trips than the younger ones. Researchers analyzed data collected from the study to assess the effects on honey bee colonies if they began foraging earlier than normal. The researchers found that foraging at a younger age led to a decrease in the number of mature honey bees, which could lead to a decline in colony foragers. Colony decline was accelerated by foraging younger. In colonies with a large number of young bees, their foraging yields and death rates were higher, much like what is being observed in CCD cases around the world. Dr. Perry said that young bees may leave the hive earlier than expected as an adaptive response to the decline in older bees foraging. If the increase in death rates continues too long, or the hive doesn’t have the capacity to handle it quickly enough, then this natural reaction could lead to catastrophic outcomes for the colony. “Our findings suggest that monitoring when the bees start to forage can be an indicator of its overall health. According to Yale e 360, a third of the world’s food comes from plants that depend on bees. The threat that declining bee populations pose to food security in their countries is alarming governments across North America and Europe. Bibliography: Clint J. Perry and Eirik Sovik. Mary R. Myerscough and Andrew B. Barron. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 9 February, 2015. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1422089112. NY Times Video: Colony Collapse Disorder
