--- title: Pesticides Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Honeybees: Study | TIME description: A new study from Harvard’s School of Public Health claims pesticides are causing honeybees to leave their hives and die off in large numbers. canonical: https://time.com/video/gNbRsu6h/ og:title: Pesticides Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Honeybees: Study og:description: A new study from Harvard’s School of Public Health claims pesticides are causing honeybees to leave their hives and die off in large numbers. og:url: https://time.com/video/gNbRsu6h/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/gNbRsu6h/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pesticides Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Honeybees: Study twitter:description: A new study from Harvard’s School of Public Health claims pesticides are causing honeybees to leave their hives and die off in large numbers. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/gNbRsu6h/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Pesticides Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Honeybees: Study > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Pesticides Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Honeybees: Study [Watch (HLS stream): Pesticides Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Honeybees: Study](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/gNbRsu6h.m3u8) (2:07)  _Published 2014-05-14. A new study from Harvard’s School of Public Health claims pesticides are causing honeybees to leave their hives and die off in large numbers._ --- Jul 27, 2023 4:38 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [A Mother's Exposure to Pesticides During Pregnancy May Raise Children's Autism Risk](/video/7lFEDFRa/) ### A Mother's Exposure to Pesticides During Pregnancy May Raise Children's Autism Risk [Appeals Court Orders EPA to Ban a Pesticide Known to Harm Children](/video/wFWJBGKL/) ### Appeals Court Orders EPA to Ban a Pesticide Known to Harm Children [This Super Simple Household Item Gets Pesticides Off Apples, Study Says](/video/kk2qNGLm/) ### This Super Simple Household Item Gets Pesticides Off Apples, Study Says --- ## Transcript Honeybees are leaving their hives en masse and causing the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, because of certain kinds of pesticides. That's according to a new study out of Harvard School of Public Health. The way Colony Collapse Disorder goes down is reminiscent of a horror movie. A beekeeper toddles out to a colony and finds only a few, if any, adult bees in the hive, but there are no dead bee bodies. A writer for Bloomberg reports those bee deaths or disappearances first started getting attention in 2006 when beekeepers began losing roughly a third of their colonies, up from 15 % in previous years. That's a big problem considering how important bees are to our agricultural economy. The New York Times reports honey bees pollinate hundreds of crops we consume. To put that into perspective the USDA said in 2013 one third of all food and beverages are made possible by pollination. While there are many theories about the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, like pathogen infestation and beekeeping practices, Harvard researchers concluded two kinds of insecticides played a role in the onset of CCD. Researchers studied 18 bee colonies in three locations in Massachusetts from October 2012 through April 2013. At each location researchers split the six colonies into three groups, treating two with insecticides and leaving one untreated. According to a Harvard press release the insecticide treated colonies saw populations begin dying off substantially by January. By April half of the treaty colonies were lost. The study's lead author who based the study off of his previous research said, we demonstrated again in this study that neonicotinoids, or the insecticides, are highly likely to be responsible for triggering CCD in honey bee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter. And a Forbes writer said while the study isn't conclusive it remains a compelling demonstration of the potential impact of neonicotinoids on honeybees. The study's lead author said the next step will be figuring out how the insecticides affect the biological mechanism of honeybees to cause them to leave, and eventually reverse the trend. The study is published in the Bulletin of Insectology. Thanks for watching. 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