Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is a poorly understood phenomenon in which the adult bees in a beehive abruptly disappear. Over the course of a week the majority of the bees in an affected colony will flee the hive and disappear, going off to die elsewhere. The few remaining insects are then found to be diseased, with a large pathogen load. Scientists who have examined dead bees from abandoned hives have found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees' intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection.

From 1971 to 2006 approximately half of the U.S. honey bee colonies have vanished, but this decline includes the cumulative losses from all factors such as urbanization, pesticide use, tracheal and Varroa mites and commercial beekeepers retiring and going out of business, and has been somewhat gradual. Late in the year 2006 and in early 2007, however, the rate of attrition was alleged to have reached new proportions, and the term "Colony Collapse Disorder" was proposed to describe this sudden rash of disappearances.

CCD was originally found only in Western honey bee colonies in North America, but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, but to a lesser degree.

The cause (or causes) of the syndrome is not yet well understood. Theories include environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, unknown pathogens, mites, antibiotics, pesticides such as neonicotinoids (artificial forms of nicotine that act as neurotoxins to insects. It has been suggested that this may account for worker bees neglecting to provide food for eggs and larvae, and for a breakdown of the bees' navigational abilities.), emissions from cellular phones or other manmade devices,and genetically modified (GM) crops. That the disappearances have only been reported from commercial beekeepers in affected areas (i.e., not feral colonies or organic beekeepers), suggests to some that beekeeping practices may be a primary factor. Large commercial beekeepers transport their bees from place to place, sometimes over long distances. While in transit the bees are fed sugar water, the travel is extremely stressful, they are sprayed with pesticides to control mites, and fed antibiotics.

According to Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate professor of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, "We are pushing the bees too hard. We are starving them out by feeding them artificially and moving them great distances." Given the stress commercial bees are under, Dr. Kevan suggests CCD might be caused by parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or long wet springs, or pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe it's all of the above...

It's best to buy and consume organic honey. Hopefully not too long from now, all bee keepers will be organic out of necessity.