Colony Collapse Disorder

Rufus_1611 · Mar 17, 2007

Bees means hives?

American bees are dropping like flies, victims of a mystery ailment that threatens to put a massive dent in the nation’s horticultural production.

US commercial beekeepers from at least 22 states are reporting that bees have either mysteriously died or disappeared in huge numbers, with some beekeepers reporting a loss of between 30 and 70 percent of overall beehives. Experts are calling this mystery syndrome ‘colony collapse disorder’(CCD), in which bees leave their hives in droves, never to return.

Since October 2006, 35 percent of the US population of the Western honey bee (apis mellifera) - billions of individual bees - simply flew from their hives and disappeared.

Researchers are scrambling to make sense of the development, which is said to have a sizeable effect on the one third of US growers who rely on bees for pollination.

Yet this is not the first time hives have mysteriously dwindled. As far back as 1896, hive declines going under names like 'fall dwindle' disease’, 'May dwindle', 'spring dwindle', 'disappearing disease', and 'autumn collapse', have all caused alarm, then dissipated. But ‘colony collapse disorder’ is by far the largest hurdle ever faced by US beekeepers.

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billwald · Mar 18, 2007

see www.coasttocoastam.com It was reported see www.earthfiles.com that the death of bees is caused by a new nicotine based bug killer.

Rufus_1611 · Apr 15, 2007

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
Published: 15 April 2007

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

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