An environmental model of honey bee colony collapse due to pesticide contamination (Q2283926)

The authors develop a mathematical model of honey bee colony collapse based on the contamination of forager bees in environmental regions contaminated with pesticides. An important application of the model is the daily homing capacity each day of foragers bees. They present the mathematical analysis considering the contaminated and uncontamination pesticide cases. The model consists of difference equations describing the daily homing of forager bees in the two cases, with an increased homing failure of contaminated bees. The colony collapse is quantified in terms of the fraction of contaminated bees subject to this increased homing failure. If the fraction is sufficiently high, then the hive falls below a viability threshold population size that leads to rapid disintegration. If the fraction is sufficiently low, then the hive can rise above the viability threshold and attain a stable population level. The study is completed using a number of numerical simulations.