I am teaching a general biology course right now, and one of my students asked about why he sees so many dead bees on campus. Is this because of colony collapse disorder (CCD)? Or all the radiation from cell phones or the hospital?
Good question! And I really don't know the answer. I don't think our hives have been suffering from CCD or are dying more than average. Here is what I came up with, making a few assumptions and using a few facts about honey bee biology:
There are about 50 hives tucked into the corner of campus and in the summer each hive probably contains about 50,000 bees.
That is about 2.5 million bees! Since bees are working so hard in the summer, they have an average life-span of only about 6 weeks.
So if 2.5 million bees are dying every six weeks, that means 59,523 die every day, 2,480 die every hour, or a bee flies off to bee heaven once every 1.5 seconds.
I think the most likely explanation for the dead bees he's observed on campus is that there is a larger than average bee population here and thus more dead bees around.
What do you think?
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