Honeybees and colony collapse disorder: understanding key drivers and economic implications

Honeybees and colony collapse disorder: understanding key drivers and economic implications

posted 3 March 2025 by saferemr.com

Singh G, Rana A. Honeybees and colony collapse disorder: understanding key drivers and economic implications. Proc. Indian Natl. Sci. Acad. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43538-025-00399-x

Fig. 3 Effects of electromagnetic fields on Honeybee health: EMF exposure is proposed to induce both behavioural changes (reduced foraging, increased distress signals, and impaired navigation) and cellular/physiological effects (membrane damage, mineral imbalances, reproductive impairment, stress markers, and genic imbalances). These changes can lead to individual bee death and potentially disrupt colony dynamics and survival, which can ultimately boost the process of colony collapse disorder​ Full size image

​Abstract

Biodiversity, including the diversity of pollinators such as honeybees, is crucial for ecosystem stability and sustainable development. This review highlights the complex factors contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), focusing on inadequate bee management practices, pesticide exposure, biotic stressors, nutritional deficiencies, electromagnetic fields, and climate change. These stressors are shown to interact in ways that impair honeybee health and behavior, leading to colony declines. The paper details the biological consequences of CCD, including the absence of adult worker bees, the persistence of the queen, and the lack of dead bees within the hive. The economic impact of declining honeybee populations is significant, with losses affecting crop yields, food prices, and global trade. This decline threatens agriculture, particularly in regions dependent on pollination services. The review emphasizes the interconnectedness of honeybee health with broader ecological and economic systems, calling for urgent conservation measures, improved management practices, and sustainable agricultural strategies to mitigate the negative effects of CCD. Key recommendations for future research focus on the need for regional studies, long-term monitoring, and public education on the importance of honeybee conservation.

Electromagnetic fields and bee disappearance

One intriguing theory posits that the proliferation of telecommunications technology and the increasing prevalence of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) may play a role in CCD (Fig. 3) (Wyszkowska et al. 2019; Sahib 2011; Hill & Bartomeus 2016). Adult honeybees possess a magnetoreception sense akin to other animals, including birds, microbes, fishes, whales, dolphins, and insects. Like other organisms such as birds, microbes, fishes, whales, dolphins, and insects, adult honeybees are equipped with an impressive magnetoreception sense. This sense aids in navigation during migrations and long-distance travel (Ferrari 2014). It is postulated that magnetic fields, electromagnetic field fluctuations, and geomagnetic disturbances disrupt bees’ navigation systems, preventing their return to their hives (Ferrari 2014). In CCD the vanished bees never recover but are believed to die individually, far from their hives (Sahib 2011). Honeybees are known to detect Earth’s magnetic field, possibly using organized magnetic nanoparticles within their bodies (Liang et al. 2016; Lambinet et al. 2017). Thielens et al. conducted a study on the effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) on Western honeybees (Thielens et al. 2020). Their study suggested that a modest transition in environmental incident power density, moving from frequencies below 3 GHz to higher frequencies, resulted in a notable rise in absorbed power. Active mobile phone handsets were found to have a profound impact on bee behaviour, inducing worker piping signals. Subsequent experiments confirmed these initial observations with controlled RF-EMF signal enhancements (Favre 2017). Mall and Kumar (2014) reported that radiofrequency and electromagnetic radiations can negatively impact biomolecular cells, ultimately impairing the biological structure and functions of organisms. Honeybees possess magnetic crystals in their fat bodies, and the effect of cell phone tower electromagnetic radiation on the foraging behaviour of Asiatic honeybees was observed (Taye et al. 2017). Observations included changes in returning ability, flight activity, and pollen foraging efficiency. Results revealed that colonies close to mobile phone towers were most affected, with flight activity and returning ability decreasing as proximity to the towers increased. RF-EMF from wireless devices and cell towers can cause changes in neurotransmitter functions, blood–brain barrier, morphology, calcium efflux, electrophysiology, cellular metabolism, and gene and protein expression in certain types of cells, even at low intensities (Sivani & Sudarsanam 2012). Exposure to mobile phone radiation has been shown to cause decay and damage to the internal plasma membranes of honeybee stomach cells, which in turn affect the levels of Mg, Ca, Zn, and Fe elements in the cells (Mahmoud & Gabarty 2021). Mobile phone radiation has been found to significantly reduce the hatching ratio of honeybee queens, but it did not adversely affect mating success. However, surviving queens were not negatively impacted after the exposure (Odemer & Odemer 2019).

Microwave radiation from mobile phones has been shown to cause adverse effects on different cell functions, including histological alterations in various visceral organs and changes in blood parameters in mice models (Yousif Al-Fatlawi 2022). Although Pollen foraging behavior did not show any significant difference, these findings underscore the potential harm of cell phone radiation on honeybee populations, which could have far-reaching consequences for ecosystems.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43538-025-00399-x#Sec5

pdf: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s43538-025-00399-x.pdf