Disposed Paper Cups Towards Decline of Bee's Colony

Abstract

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) was reported as a major cause for decline in bee population and subsequent agricultural productivity from many parts of the world. Many biological and physical factors such as diseases namely, insecticides, environmental stresses or a combination of all these are attributed as reasons for bee collapse. However, clear cut facts on bee collapse are not reported recently. The change in lifestyle pattern and increased awareness on environment have enhanced the usage of disposable paper cups rather than glass, plastic cups invariably in coffee shops, juice centres in urban, semi-urban, rural and biodiversity protected areas. The bees neglect visiting flowers are attracted by the rich residual sugar in the cups as an alternative food resource. A Considerable population of honey bees are visited to these 'cup flowers' never returned to the bee hives. These cups act as 'death traps' for them. This has been observed for a period of 35 days since 1st Sep 2023. The number of cups in these bars ranges 160 to 4000 approximately with an average of 1225 cups in a day. The bees fell into the cups containing the residual beverages and were unable to fly. This leads to the death of the bees. We recorded adult dead bees in the coffee bars in 35 days.