Reason For Colony Collapse?

I haven't done a lot of posting here but wanted to see what everyone thought of this idea by my dad. He has noticed that there haven't been many bees around this year, in Montana, and I related it to colony collapse. With all the worry over West Nile he believes there is more mosquito spraying and they are doing it earlier in the evening before the bees have a chance return to their hives, which is killing them off.

Any thoughts?

That's a good theory. The spraying certainly doesn't help. I thought when they first started reporting about bees disappearing they said it was due to the number of cel phone towers going up interfering with bees natural homing devise.

I read an article quite recently that said that bees dying off and being lesser in number for a few years is quite natural. The article said that honey bees were actually back on the rise this year.

CCD is a combination of factors.

One of which is fumigating vast areas of land...

Pesticides do not work as intended or should I sad.. as they are "sold" to us... as they eradicate not only the pest insects.. but also the insects that prey on the pests. The beneficial buddies. The big problem with this is that the pests tend to reproduce faster, and or move into a recently 'cleaned' area.. and they have the pick of the crops to munch on..

Back before pesticides were used... 2-4% of crops were chomped on due to pest insects... after pesticides its around 15%.

Plus pesticides are bad for you!...

Another factor is those "green" lawns... people WASTE billions of dollars on getting.

In fact it is this vanity that may be one of the biggest factors period.

You see... Dandelions are one of the earliest flowers to come out en mass in spring.

Honey Bees and dandelions have evolved so closely over time that you can say it is a synergistic relationship.

Dandelion pollen contains a protein in it that the Queen bee NEEDS in order to lay eggs...

Yet Dandelions are one of the number one factors people with lawns tend to hate most... so they spray Herbicides all over the place.. killing the Dandelions.. and by doing that...

Yup.. Killing the bees.


I wager that the immediate cessation of both examples above may be enough to stop CCD..

(also allowing a more natural Queen breeding program to be in the works would help.. as cloning them seems to be a very bad idea--as it muffles evolution)