High forager death rates may accelerate honey bee colony failure

As an aid to testing hypotheses for the causes of colony failure we have developed a compartment model of honey bee colony population dynamics to explore the impact of different death rates of forager bees on colony growth and development. The model predicts a critical threshold forager death rate beneath which colonies regulate a stable population size. If death rates are sustained higher than this threshold rapid population decline is predicted and colony failure is inevitable. The model also predicts that high forager death rates draw hive bees into the foraging population at much younger ages than normal, which acts to accelerate colony failure.

Source:
Khoury DS, Myerscough MR, Barron AB (2011) A Quantitative Model of Honey Bee Colony Population Dynamics. PLoS ONE 6(4): e18491. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018491 (attached)