Biologists have been warning the agriculture industry about colony collapse disorder (CCD) for more than a decade. Between 2006 and 2007, beekeepers around the US began to report losses of 30 to 90 percent of their domestic hives. In many cases, more than half of the sickened colonies showed mysterious signs of mass worker bee disappearance—a symptom never before on this scale seen by apiculturists. Without its thousands of adult worker bees, a hive cannot sustain itself, and will inevitably die. This trend continued to worsen over consecutive years, and 5,000 beekeepers in the US had lost a shocking 44 percent of their honey bee colonies between 2015 and 2016. Not only were keepers losing their hives during the winter, which can sometimes be expected, they were also reporting colony collapses during the summer when bees should be at their most productive.

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