A Spring Without Bees, by Michael Schacker

In recent years honey bees has been dieing off at an alarming rate. In the United States, bee keepers claim the increase in this annual die off rate to be 30 per cent. The phenomenon has been wide spread also in Europe, especially France, where research is most thorough into possible reasons why. For some reason or other, countries like Australia and New Zealand have not experienced this problem.

The strange disappearance of the bees has been labelled Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD (I know, another acronym to keep up with.) Bee colonies usually have some annual die off. Their numbers are typically killed off by disease and mites (the varroa mite, for example, which attaches itself to the abdomen of the bee and infects the bee with various diseases). Making the problem even more perilous for the bees is the fact that they have a low immunity, making them doubly vulnerable.

When bees die in this manner, they usually expire at the front of the hive, leaving a pile of bee corpses. With Colony Collapse Disorder, the result is different. Very few dead bodies are found at the front of the hive, and no adult bees are found within the hive. Unhatched broods are still found in the hives, and honey is still left behind. Adding to the strangeness of the scene, it takes weeks before predators like wax moths and hive beetles move in to start looting the abandoned honey. Typically these predators are quick to start eating the free honey. If these hungry predators were holding off, then this was a sure sign that something was wrong with the honey itself. The bees surely must have been sick.

Is Imidacloprid, Commonly Known as IMD, to Blame?

Enter the French beekeepers, who since 1994 have noticed that there has been a problem. After much science and research, the French started to point the finger at the insecticide IMD (imidacloprid), which is widely used in the US. Once the French called for a ban and restrictions on the use of IMD, they found that, after a few years (it takes time for the IMD to be flushed out of the ecosystem), the bees returned. Interestingly, Australia and New Zealand, the two countries that did not experience CCD, have stringent rules when it comes to the use of IMD. (Also of note, organic bees did not suffer CCD).

The studies found that even minuscule amounts of IMD (a few parts per billion), could disrupt the nervous system of the bees, making them unable to forage and basically think and act as bees should. Here is the Schacker on the subject:

“The French researchers got all the way down to less than one part per billion with their detector, and found that as little as a few parts per billion in the nectar or feed syrup could make the honey bee groggy, impairing the bee’s short-term memory in smell and theoretically blocking normal foraging.”

As mentioned above, IMD is used widely in the US, even extensively on suburban lawns and golf courses (the book cites alarming studies showing high cancer rates for golf course attendants).

Weaknesses in the Second Part of A Spring Without Bees

The second part of A Spring Without Bees turns into the usual call to arms, giving action plans and ways to help get rid of IMD on a personal level. Michael Schacker takes as certain that IMD is the culprit for Colony Collapse Disorder, yet the science on the subject, as described in the book, does not strike me as conclusive. This seems to be a major fault with the book: Schacker jumps too quickly to the conclusion that IMD is the culprit. While the research on IMD is certainly persuasive, it’s not really conclusive. More work needs to be done.

Any argument against excessive use of chemicals and toxins in our environment is a no-brainer, yet this shouldn’t be wound up with an argument stating that IMD is certainly the reason for Colony Collapse Disorder. We need to know the truth.

For the novice reader on all things bees, the book also could have been made more interesting by including a more detailed history of the bee and their ecological role. A Spring Without Bees offered lots of fascinating snippets of bee facts that could have happily been expanded upon.

As it stands, A Spring Without Bees works like a fascinating detective story that reaches its conclusions too soon.

A Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply, by Michael Schacker. Foreword by Bill McKibben. Published by The Lyons Press. ISBN: 978-1-59921-432-0