Colony Collapse Disorder and Pesticides Around 2006, many bee keepers in the United States and parts of Europe began reporting a sharp decline in their honey supplies. bees. The reason for this decline in numbers was not known and so scientists called it colony collapse disorder (CCD). Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is not a very old phenomenon and became popular when large numbers of bee colonies began to disappear. The disappearance was mysterious as no dead bees were found in or around hives after a colony's numbers dwindled or disappeared. This has stimulated numerous studies and investigations to unravel the mystery and establish possible remedies. Among the many reasons that led to the appearance of CCD was the use of harmful and dangerous pesticides. Timbrell (2002) provides a solid foundation on the effects of toxins in the animal body with the aim of providing a scientific solution to the problem. This article focuses its study on these pesticides with the aim of establishing the effects of toxins present in insecticides that could affect bees. In CCD, honey bee colonies lose their workers under unclear circumstances (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 283). It is not unusual for bees to die or colonies to be lost, but the nature and extent reported in 2006 was alarming. Statistics collected in the United States alone show that so far 50-90% of bees have been lost due to this scientific phenomenon (Cox-Foster et al., 2007, p. 284). pollination of plants and thus these huge losses have become a serious concern. There are many reasons that have been put forward and hailed as being behind CCD and they include pesticides, para...... middle of paper ...... are many and interrelated although some contribute more to the phenomenon than others. Governments of affected countries must allocate funds that will help carry out research to establish the causes of CCD. Even countries not affected by this phenomenon must take all the necessary precautions to prevent their bee population from decreasing. If the necessary measures are not taken as soon as now, many nations risk losing millions of plants due to lack of pollination and we could eventually find ourselves in a famine-stricken world. Works Cited Cox-Foster, D.L., Conlan, S., Holmes, E.C., Palacios, G., Evans, J.D., Moran, N.A.,… Quan, P. (2007). A metagenomic investigation of microbes in honey bee colony collapse disorder. Science, 81(5848), 283-287.Timbrell, J. (2002). Introduction to toxicology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis.