The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees: A Scientific Mystery

By Sandra Markle

Honeybees are a crucial part of our food chain. As they gather nectar from flowers to make sweet honey, these bees also play an important role in pollination, helping some plants produce fruit. But large numbers of honeybees are disappearing every year . . . and no one knows why. Is a fungus killing them? Could a poor diet be the cause? What about changes to bees' natural habitat? In this real-life science mystery, scientists and beekeepers are working to answer these questions . . . and save the world's honeybees before it's too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781467717007

Reviews for The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees

[themulhern · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent book. The layout is good, the photographs are excellent. It combines a discussion of the current thinking on CCD with an introduction to honeybees. Appropriate for a young audience, and a nice introduction to some of the current research into CCD.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a very easy to read & understand book. It is also a very important book to read if you are interested in ecology and the protection of our natural food sources.

In October of 2006, Dave Hackenberg went out to check his bees..... Millions of them. What he found was only the queens of each hive & their broods... the rest were missing. Three weeks earlier, he had driven the group of 30,000 from FL to PA and all was well.

In January 2007, beekeepers from all over the u.s. met.... many had experienced the same form of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Beekeepers were losing anywhere from 30-50% of their hives.... The biggest issue wasn't the loss of beekeeping business, but the fact that without honeybees food crops would fail and people would go hungry.

Scientists & beekeepers found that: change of habitat (wide spread urbanization & single crop land utilization [usually corn]); overworking & improper diet (cutting short the honeybees rest time and feeding them sugar syrup); pesticides (especially neonicotinoids [nicotine based]); Varroa mites; and Nosema fungus are to blame.

The book goes on to talk about care & feeding of bees; the different types of honeybees; the splitting of colonies; and a new "Hygienic" breed of bees that help fight mites & diseases.

The book also has a short section on: Global Rescue Effects; Helping Your Local Honeybees; and Honeybee Websites.

What an amazing book which I am happy I took the time to read!

[mishker-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A good book for older grade-school readers or even adults who would like to learn about honeybees and colony collapse disorder. Sandra Markle has done a great job taking the reader through the basics of the honeybee hive including the types of bees and the jobs they do and how bees help us. There are wonderful pictures to help guide you along the way. The potential hypotheses for what might be causing the collapse of honeybees are explained along with what solutions are currently being worked on. A great science read for kids and adults alike!The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees was received as an Advanced Reading Copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[athena.j · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The genre of this book is informational. This book launches the reader into a full-fledged scientific investigation of why honeybees are vanishing, and what scientists are doing to combat the onset of these disappearances. This book stops to explain terms and things that the reader might not understand, and I think it would be great for a 4th grade classroom. This could be used in a life cycle discussion, or even a discussion about plants and the concern for pollinators.

[pussreboots · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You might not have noticed but honeybees have been disappearing specifically they have been declining at alarming rates. The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees by Sandra Marble looks at the effects of diminishing populations, the possible causes, and what's being done to save the honeybees.For a short book — 48 pages, The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees is densely packed with facts. The information is presented in clear, succinct, and easy to understand way.The section on Tokyo, for instance, has really stuck with me. It's the section I also go to when describing the book. Apparently the city has a crow problem. The birds have adapted to hunt garbage, being able to tear open the clear garbage bags everyone is expected to use.BUT there's a turf war between the birds and the bees. By introducing urban apiaries, the city is stating to curb the crow problem.