The Problem:
In 2007, the first instances of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) began affecting bee colonies across the world.
- Parasites including Varroa Destructor Mites
- Pesticides, specifically ones containing neonicotinoids
- Habitat loss
- Monocropping
- Changing climates
- Over-reliance for pollination by humans
Together, these factors create the perfect storm for bee colonies. As a class, we worked to understand how this over-dependence is unsustainable and dangerous to world agricultural practices.
Our group created and analyzed a situation where, by 2020, pollinator bees across the world had gone extinct due to unsustainable practices. The following are our collective findings.
Abstract
The human race has been utilizing bees for pollination purposes for hundreds of years. Throughout history, this seemingly innocent use of a single organism for such a large responsibility has been overlooked. We relied on bees for the pollination of a huge variety of crops and food, of which acted as an economic resource. This spiraled into an over-reliance on one single source for our crop production. For years, bees were willing to pollinate for us and we decided to neglect them rather than cherish. Through the use or implementation of extremely harmful pesticides, development of urban societies, intensive farming, and human-led global climate change, we have been ignorantly pushing bees away.
These quite selfish decisions lead to the near extinction of bees in 2007. This was the first account of colony collapse disorder, a problem affecting a majority of worker bees in a colony. They simply leave the hive and queen behind and never return. In 2007, beekeepers had recorded total bee losses ranging from 30-90% of the hive. The causes for this disorder were those previously outlined. During this time, the United States Federal Court deemed bees an economic resource rather than a natural resource, which only made the protection of bees more difficult to achieve. This declaration barred the EPA as well as other environmental groups from being able to protect bees. We continued to view bees as a source of monetary gain rather than a natural organism that does not solely live to serve humans.
Over the next ten years, our habits did not change and we continued to over rely on bees for pollination. In 2018, the terrorizing colony collapse disorder arose once again. Late 2018, farmers noticed a decline and delay of crop production and beekeepers were recording hive loss of sixty percent or more. The concern of disappearing and deceased bees continued to rise at an exponential rate through 2019. By 2020, there were no more operating hives and the bees were considered extinct. The effects of extinct bees were felt very quickly. Since we over-relied on them for our pollination, the delay and decrease of crop production was active immediately. Farmers and other industries found it very difficult to feed their livestock. There was also widespread sterilization of many food bearing plant species. In 2021, many nations joined forces using the European Union as an example. Many believed that a coalition of various scientists and environmentalists would help in distributing food supplies to its citizens and finding solutions to the bee-over-reliance issue we crafted. Hand pollination was one of the first solutions that nations turned to. Although the speed of pollination is nowhere near that of bees, it still proved to be an effective tool through 2040. With the help of volunteers in the locale, private farmers were able to receive a helping hand in pollinating their crops.
In 2023, the first Pollinator and Habitat Protection Act was enacted. This called for a change from bees as an economic resource to a natural resource. This allowed for further protection of bees to be produced. Additionally, acres of land were devoted to protecting the forests, meadows, and plants vital to pollinator species’ survival. This system is very similar to that of national parks and forests. The following year, a worldwide ban of pesticide use was issued. In 2029, the production of the world’s first robotic bee was introduced by a company named BuzzTech. The idea was a complete failure due to a high percentage of defective units. The hand pollination movement went corporate in 2025. Workers fought to increase salaries and living conditions for the next few years. In 2030, a group known as the Hot Buzz, advocated against hand pollination and wished for natural forms. There was a trade agreement between soil and food. Soil was much more fertile in certain areas of the world. These nations agreed to trade the soil for food from the areas with less fertile soil. This was in effect through the 2040s. Late in the 2030s, the introduction of pollen distribution towers was initiated. Research has been conducted on this solution since the beginning of the colony collapse tragedy. Other pollinator species have been compensated in regions where be pollination lacked.
By 2040, the world called home to a more diverse pollinator family. In the United States a more diversified system has been put into place for pollinating food crops, ranging from artificial to natural. With the increased awareness of the natural systems that humans live near came a new appreciation for nature. The over emphasis and reliance humans created toward bees was a major factor in the downfall of bees and far from quick comeback. With the combination of a more natural diverse pollination habitat and the artificial, but highly successful pollen towers, the system is not overbearing on one single source. The world is better and stronger now that we have come to respect nature and welcome all forms of pollination assistance
Timeline
Full Report
The following is a conglomerate of historic interviews, documents and letters discussing the twenty two years of research and implementation of solutions to the sudden and disastrous loss of global bee populations from CCD. Data is taken from experts, specialists, citizens, workers and historians with applicable information regarding the process of recovering from our over-dependence of bees. Some selections have been broken up to better discuss events chronologically.
Found below is a chronological breakdown of historical information, logs, personal reports and interviews regarding the post colony collapse world from 2018 to 2040.
Pre-2020: Beginning in 2018 we see a recurrence of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) emerging, and leading to the extinction of bees as a species by 2020. Though there is no immediate catastrophic consequence of CCD, news of it has quickly become global. Countries are now trying to figure out how to move forward, making food models, taking steps towards alternative pollination research, and looking at current policy. In the past, bees have been viewed as an economic resource and rather than an important aspect of the environment, causing their environmental needs to be overlooked. The over reliance on bees is starting to sting.
2020 – 2025: By now the full effect of CCD is apparent and its effects are wide ranging. On a global scale, smaller, undeveloped, countries are being reformed and are grouping up with one another to help each other and better chances of survival. Hand pollination has been resorted for to save as many crops as it can. Policy on pollinators has already adapted and changed to promote them as a natural resource and to ensure habitats they live in are ensured to be safe. By now harmful pesticides like the neonicotinoids have been banned and even natural alternatives have been developed. There have been movements across the globe to give better working conditions, rights, and wages to hand pollinators. Although this decreased corporate profits, it allowed a sustainable economic opportunity to many. There areas of the world that are being affected by the absence of critical nutrients in the soil and lack of new pollinators and these were deemed as not arable land sites. The robotic bee was introduced in 2024 with very minimal success, with bugs popping up with their coding and becoming lost or not performing right.
2025 – 2030: With the continued use of mono-cropping and overlooking the nitrogen cycle, the soil conditions got worse. These not arable sites became known as brownfield sites and by 2027 they were more defined as not usable. The “Hot Buzz” movement was created by those who believed that all pollination should be done by humans and natural pollinators, not artificial ones. In the past decade, with the absence of bees, the world has hit its low. Now, however, the world is becoming more stabilized and adapting to their new circumstances and making changes. The worst has past.
2030 – 2035: Since the advent of CCD, negative consequences have been found that were not immediately noticeable. One of these was the brown field occurrence. The infertile soil led to the natural increase in the soil economy and led to soil being traded internationally. On a community level there were shifts towards composting waste and foods that haven’t been eaten, or food scraps. By the year 2035 the soil economy was expanded and was becoming larger than the oil economy. Trade agreements were made, the most notable being an international trade agreement that soil can be traded for food in quantifiable amounts. The goal here is to spur countries to support each other by sharing resources and supporting the nitrogen cycle. In the mid 2030’s is when alternative pollination methods began to pop up around the world and the increased amount of alternative pollination methods as well as pollinators combined with policy came to full effect.
2035 – 2040: By 2040 the world is nearly fully recovered. Only through major changes was the world able to succeed. Pollination technologies like the pollen tower, which spreads pollen over large areas of land, took off regionally. The main reason the CCD crisis was able to be controlled was by diversifying pollination methods and changing the way that we live our everyday lives. The lasting changes gave way to closing the nitrogen cycle further, as well as creating a focus on nature over commercialism with farms giving land for habitat to local animals. Even in the school curriculums and the “Hot Buzz” political pushing, there was a shift towards more sustainable solutions being taught, with an emphasis on awareness of systems outside the house.
Conclusion
It would be foolish, irresponsible, and incorrect to try and declare that all of our pollination troubles were over in 2040. The bees are gone, destroyed in the folly of our overdependence on them. In their place, people across the world have worked to find a solution to their disappearance, a solution to a sudden collapse of our agricultural chain and love of food convenience. We floundered and fell for a time, but like children learning to walk, we found our footing and stabilized our system. Surprisingly, one of the most lasting solutions came first in the form of hand pollination. Pioneered by eastern countries and farmers desperate to keep their land and further strengthened by the Hand Pollination Movement, hand pollination forced humanity to take a much more active, hands on roll in the reproduction of plant species. In this way, the masses became privy to the complex system that had been altered and hidden by our overdependence on bees. People were made an integral part of the system in an attempt to keep it afloat. While revealing, this also cast humanity in a new, different position of control. Whereas before they controlled the flow and location of bee populations and, subsequently, what had easy access to be pollinated, they now dictated directly what got pollinated where and when.
This was not our only change, as living with the consequences of our mistakes taught us a great deal. Foremost among the lessons we learned was to not “put all of our eggs in one basket.” Overdependence on one source of pollination led to the collapse of the system, so scientists and environmentalists worked hard to diversify pollinator species and pollinator dependence. By focusing efforts on creatures such as bats, ants, and butterflies, we built a complex system of measures and countermeasures, pillars of pollinators that supported one another and distributed the job of pollination across the board so no single species was overburdened. Though touched upon already, the fact that too much pressure on bees drove collapse is paramount to remember. Humanity’s control of bees created a downward spiral corrected in part by our efforts with other pollinator species. Rather than put an iron grip on one creature, we offered hands to many. Furthermore, efforts to protect and conserve habitats and food for pollinator species helped ensure their prolonged survival and thriving.
Lessons from the previous two solutions helped spur the development of other technological innovations. Though many early technological solutions, like the failed robotic bee project, didn’t make it far into the market or into common use, if they made it past testing at all, there were one or two with lasting ability. Prime among these technological solutions were the pollen towers. These structures collected pollen, either on the wind or from hand pollinators, and scattered the pollen across large swaths of field using controlled bursts and the breeze. This, while simple in appearance, represented a collection of research and knowledge garnered through the success and implementation of our previous solutions. Hand pollination and diverse pollinators caused us to reexamine the system as a whole and what made it tick. In doing so, the way we understood and interacted with the nature of the pollination and agricultural system changed dramatically. Challenging what we thought we knew resulted in revised processes that, together, showed us ways to improve the system in less invasive ways. The pollen towers help to support the system as a whole, working as a pillar in the same manner as the diverse pollinator species.
Here, in 2040, we are closer to comfortable. The way that we approach pollination and agriculture has, through force of necessity, changed ultimately for the better. Overuse and over dependence on bees as pollinators caused us to stumble globally, but we collectively stood back up and learned from our mistakes. While we may still be a little ways away from a perfectly fixed system, we are in a much more stable and sustainable situation now in 2040 than we previously were.