Introduction: This research proposal will focus on the important ecological topic of colony collapse disorder in bees. Colony collapse disorder is identified by rapid loss of worker bees that died away from the hive, leaving the young bees, or brood, and the queen bee. The disorder is said to be caused by several different factors, including, but not limited to, pesticides, diseases, pathogens, mites, commercial transportation and climate change. Without the worker bees, the rest of the hive would not be able to sustain itself and most of the bees would eventually die. This is an important issue in ecology because bees are crucial to many ecosystems as pollinators. (Gifford, 2011) According to Dr. Ann Bartuska, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics, about $15 billion of crops can be attributed to honey bees’ pollination every year. Bees account for the pollination of so many fruits and vegetables humans eat and can easily obtain every year. With this disorder looming over bee colonies around the world, things that we eat everyday will become hard to obtain. …show more content…
Colony collapse disorder can be caused by stress because of many different factors. Due to this stress, bees respond by sending out their youngest workers to forage and thus causes a population decline due to the bees’ negligence in said foraging. The reason we will be observing brood foraging activity is to determine the complications with having young brood forage too early. This study will allow those who work with bees to understand why their bee population may be declining and be able to prevent these types of problems from