The Vanishing Honeybee

By Cal Orey, M.A.

The good news: September is the time to celebrate National Honey Month. But the sobering fact is honey bee colony losses are soaring at an alarming rate. So, exactly why in the world are bees disappearing in high numbers, anyhow?

Q&A with the Informed Bee Culture Magazine Editor

Colony collapse disorder (CCD), honey bee health, the future of our honey bees and food chain. These shocking concerns worry beekeepers, scientists, honey producers—and may spook you, too. Jerry Hanes, the current editor of the magazine, who is a backyard beekeeper, former scientist, and teacher dishes on why he believes the hardworking honey bees are dying. He is the go-to guy to tell it as it is for the present and future of our bees as they face a mass die-off around the globe.

Here, he sat down for a Q&A, where he shares insights on how honey bees are important to humanity but also reduces your risk of chronic diseases by pollinating our nutritious foods to help you continue to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet. He dishes on the real scoop about honey bees and how they, like the planet, are facing dangerous times and why. 

Q: So, is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) worse today than back in 2010 when I wrote the first edition of The Healing Powers of Honey? One radio show host said to me on air it was pesticides. Sure, I agreed but I argued it’s much, much more to it!

A: Honey bee health is a continuing struggle to keep this insect strong, adaptable and alive. One of the main challenges is the parasitic mite, Varroa destructor. Make a fist, which is a Varroa mite. Now you are a honey bee so place that fist (Varroa) on your honey bee body somewhere. It is a huge parasite feeding on various life stages of the developing and adult honey bee, destroying tissue, feeding on honey bee fat bodies, vectoring viruses, causing immune suppression, and simply making them weak and sick. Now how do you kill, hurt, damage a bug (Varroa) on a bug (honey bee)?

Q: Is climate change making it difficult for our honey bee as it is for humans? 

A: We have climate change and not only temperature [fluctuations] but when and if flowers bloom, suburban houses and gardens and landscapes use about 80 million pounds of chemicals a year, then urban areas. Then production agricultural uses to produce a crop to feed us… 

Q: What about poor air quality and global warming aka climate change? It definitely affects humans, wildlife, pets, and our ecosystem. So, honey bees must face the problem, too, right?

A: Air quality coupled with climate change and wildfires, smoke, heat, humidity, lack of rain, too much rain, and urban/suburban air pollution is going to be an increasing struggle for all life forms on this small planet. Kind of like geologic records of fluctuations in heat and tropical conditions with dinosaurs and then to the last Ice Age. and Woolly Mammoths.

For now, yes, air pollution impacts these small creatures we call honey bees and their cousins' solitary bees and bumble bees. Honey bees search for blooming pollinators dependent on plants based on sight and smell. Change these forage paradigms and the health of honey bees in particular declines. What we have seen is that flowering plants growth, bloom times, nectar availability are changing.

Q: Since honey bees are responsible for about one third of pollination for our nuts and fruits and not to forget other food sources like beef and dairy, our food chain is in danger, isn’t it?

A: If expected 'food' availability changes, it becomes less, harder to access or disappears entirely then what happens with honey bees’ relationship with flowering plants? If you and I go to the grocery store and half the produce section is empty along with canned goods, meat and dairy products what would we do?

Q: The Happening film includes a fictional quotation from Einstein noting if the honey bees die off in four years mankind will be extinct. Nobody can find proof that Einstein predicted this scenario, but it rings possible.  What do you say?

A: Honey Bees will probably not vanish in our lifetime but as the world's population today goes from seven billion to 10-11-12 billion the food supply chain will be modified. For most of this population if in fact agricultural land is still available and doesn't have housing developments on it, we will transition to a wind pollinated diet of corn, rice, wheat, oats, barley similar to our ancestor's diet. For those with money and power they will have access to fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in huge greenhouses.

So, as we experience the loss of hives and honey, are AWOL honeybees a mere act of nature or is climate change a reality that is affecting our world as we know it?

[Adapted excerpt from The Healing Powers of Honey, Revised & Updated (Kensington Publishing, August 2026]