Honeybee populations continue to experience unsustainable losses from colony collapse disorder, driven by pesticide exposure, pathogens, and habitat loss.
Honeybees are social insects with sophisticated communication, collective decision-making, and emotional-like states detectable through behavioral assays. Colony collapse represents not just an economic loss but a mass welfare event: individuals from a destroyed colony experience disorientation, starvation, and death. Varroa-induced disease causes prolonged physiological stress across the colony. Pesticide poisoning can leave bees paralyzed, unable to fly, and dying in the field.