Although most of humanity relies upon foods that do not require animal pollination, production of 39 of the world's 57 most important monoecious crops still benefits from this ecosystem service . Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) are undoubtedly the most valuable pollinators in agriculture because they can be easily maintained and transported to pollinator-dependent crops. Yet, despite an almost 50% increase in world honey bee stocks over the last century, beekeepers have not kept cope with the >300% increase in pollinator-dependent crops . This has led to great uncertainty surrounding the recent large-scale die-offs of honey bees around the world, and has sparked enormous interest from both scientists and the general public.

Although sharp regional declines in honey bee populations have occurred in the past, such as the so-called unexplainable “Isle of Wight” disease in the early 1900s , the magnitude and velocity of these recent declines are likely unprecedented.

What is the phenomenon of CCD

Often we hear from social media, beekeeping pages, researches and scientific websites, the term so-called “Colony Collapse Disorder” or CCD, which is characterized by the rapid disappearance of adult bees from colonies containing brood and food stores with no significant damage of parasitic Varroa destructor mites or Nosema microsporidians .

In the second part of 2006, several prominent US commercial beekeepers reported an odd decline in worker populations of honey bee colonies. This phenomenon was termed colony collapse disorder (CCD), that describe the rapid loss of female workers in honey bee colonies. From tens of thousands of individuals to several hundred or fewer over a time in one to several weeks. Unlike many colony loss events, those facing CCD had an active queen present, healthy developing (larval and pupal) bees, and no overt signs of disease caused by parasitic mites (Varroa destructor or Acarapis woodii) or microbes, what might be the reason then??.

Reasons behind CCD phenomenon and solutions

In other cases, however, these morbidities are genuinely unexplainable, including those attributed to CCD sensu stricto 6. In recent winters, colony mortality in Europe has averaged ∼20% (ranging from 1.8 to 53% among countries), with starvation and parasites believed to be the main contributors (“Proceedings of the 4th COLOSS Conference, Zagreb, Croatia, 3-4 March 2009”, available at http://www.coloss.org/publications). Colony mortality during the 2006/2007, 2007/2008, and 2008/2009 winters in the US, the only country where CCD has been documented, was 32% 8, 36% 9, and 29% 10, respectively. During the winter of 2008/2009, ∼10% of the 2.3 million managed honey bee colonies in the US died with “CCD-like symptoms”, and US beekeepers self-diagnosed CCD as only the 8th most important contributor to colony mortality,