Together the United States Army and scientists from the University of Montana teamed up to solve the bee mystery. Since 2006, 20 to 40 percent of honey bees have been mysteriously dying from "colony collapse". According to the Army and scientists, a fungus and virus are working together to kill the honey bees. Although the scientists are unsure of how this combination kills the bees, they know that both the virus and the fungus multiply in cool and damp places and these two agents are deadly to the bees. Scientists and the army have not worked together since 9/11, but these two forces came together and were able to connect the pieces of this bee puzzle.
One difficult part of solving this mystery is that the bees do not only die, but they fly away from the hive alone; making it difficult for the scientists to do the bee autopsies. The virus fungus combination is deadly to bees, but only when they work together, alone neither is fatal. This two agent system was present in every bee colony the research team looked at. The army has software that is able to identify a virus based on the proteins it contains, this then allows them to find information that they were unaware that they were looking for. Scientists still need to do more research to see if they can prevent more colony deaths and to see if environmental factors affect the virus and fungus combination. The scientists are still looking for the answer of why the bees fly off to die alone; if it is because they are too weak to fly back, they forgot where there home was, or if the bee has gone insane due to the deadly combination. This operation is at risk because almost every bee colony died this winter.
This is important because it shows how human interactions are affecting the wildlife. The scientists thought that the "colony collapse" were from humans actions like pesticides and modified foods. The virus and fungus that is killing the bees could be caused from humans and the things we are putting into our ecosystem. If honey bees become extinct, plants are going to severely suffer. If the bees disappear, in turn, certain plants will disappear. Thus causing a chain reaction, certain animal species will disappear as well. Honey bees are a very important part of our ecosystem, so it could be deadly to many species if we do not figure out how to keep the bees from dying. The bees do not seem to be adapting to the new viruses and fungus that are appearing in the world today and according to Darwin, the bees are not fit to survive. Scientists need to be aware of the dramatic decrease in the bee population and try to figure out what humans can do to ensure the survival of the honey bees.
By: Rebecca Robinson
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