Honeybees – the vital pollinators for one-third of the world’s food supply – are in deep decline. Every year since 2006 about one in three bee colonies have disappeared.
It is called Colony Collapse Disorder. A kind of madness happens. The honeybees disperse from their hives and they don’t find their way back. A number of causes are cited: pesticides, loss of habitat, migratory stress.
The threats to honeybees are many. One of them is Washington College.
Recently, a WC student was stung by an insect and suffered a severe reaction. The administration was rightly concerned.
Did it consult with its own biology department about what to do? Did it check with its own Center for Environment and Society? Did it ask a local beekeeper about adopting the wild hive on campus?
What it did do the other day was call in the bee-killers.
A crew showed up on campus and began poisoning the honeybees. Grown-ups saw what was happening and ran out to protest. The poisoners refused to stop. The person supposedly in charge shrugged off complaints and talked of bringing back the team for another spraying later in the season.
Now there are facebook postings of Washington College’s bees. All dead.
There’s a name for what’s happened at Washington College. It’s Colony Collapse Disorder.
Barbara Snyder says
Editor,
This is tragedy. We so desperately need honeybees. There has been a lot of news about bees and why we need them. Surely someone at the college knew not to destroy them. And the team that destroyed the bees should have known better,too. I am appalled! This was a knee jerk reaction. In this day and age all WC had to do was get on their computer to find information on the best way to handle the bees. There are quite a few beekeepers in Kent County. I’m sure any one of them would have helped. Sadly, Barbara Snyder
David Bennett says
Editor,
It’s good to see that you cite pesticides first in the list of probable causes. I maintain a check for articles on colony collapse disorder because there is a lot of misinformation floating about. The European Union has banned the use of nicotinoid pesticides because of the perceived effect on honeybees.
It’s sad to hear of the needless destruction at Washington College. Still more sad to hear of wholesale destruction wrought on honeybees across the whole of the USA and Europe and further afield.
Janice Dickson says
Editor,
This is appalling. I guess that the “George goes green” promo is over. Whoever is responsible for calling in the exterminators should hang his/her head in shame. And perhaps take a mandatory course in Responsible Environmentalism.
John L. Seidel says
Editor,
I read with concern the short piece on a honey bee swarm at Washington College. There is no question that bees are ecologically valuable and in big trouble. We need to be concerned about them. It also is true that we try to do everything we can at the College to be responsible environmental stewards. Given the apparent disconnect, I looked into this case and here is what I found after taking the time to talk to the people involved.
The longstanding practice and policy at Washington College has always been to live trap and then release any unwanted guests in buildings, from squirrels, possums and raccoons to snakes of all sorts. We do it regularly. This extends to honeybees, and in the past the College has called in a beekeeper to capture and remove swarms. This case, however was different. Unfortunately, the bees were deep in a wall cavity and they were not accessible.
As the article notes, a student was stung and had a very severe reaction. Anaphylactic shock can be life threatening, as I know from experience in my own family. The preferred course of action would have been to remove the bees so that no-one else was at risk. But in this case, the bees were not accessible, and that was not an option. Our Health Services confirmed that there are other faculty, staff, and students who are at risk from these allergies, including people working or living in that area. Given the impossibility of capturing the bees and the potential health risk, the decision was made to exterminate the swarm. It was not a knee jerk reaction, but a decision made after carefully weighing the options and the possible outcomes.
This has never been our first choice of action and never will be. It is extremely rare for us to be faced with such an unfortunate situation. We hope that it will not happen again. I think that in this case a difficult decision was made, but it was the right one.