TinWiki: Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder refers to an emergent syndrome among honeybees that drastically depopulates affected hives. Around March 2007, the dramatic decline of honey bees began to be reported, primarily in North America and Europe. The reason for this honeybee morbidity is unclear. CCD is a very poorly understood phenomenon, and while promising hypotheses exist there is, as yet, no expert consensus.

European beekeepers observed this in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Germany; there have also been recent cases in Iran and Taiwan. It is nothing short of a pandemic, and when bees contribute nearly 80% of crop pollination, this does pose a rather large danger.

Symptoms of CCD are as follows:

• Complete absence of adult bees in colonies with little or no build-up of dead bees in or around the colonies.
  
• Presence of capped brood in colonies. Bees normally will not abandon a hive until the capped brood have all hatched.
  
• Presence of food stores, both honey and bee pollen:
  i. which are not immediately robbed by other bees
  ii. whose attack by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle is noticeably delayed.
  
• Precursor symptoms that may arise before the final colony collapse are:
  i. Insufficient workforce to maintain the brood that is present
  ii. Workforce seems to be made up of young adult bees
  iii. The Queen is present
  iv. The colony members are reluctant to consume provided food such as sugar syrup and protein supplement.
  

As mentioned earlier, in addition to producing honey, honey bees contribute approximatly 80% of all pollination to many types of food crops.










External links

Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees - washingtonpost.com, Sunday, February 11, 2007
Asian Parasite Killing Western Bees - Scientist - Planet Ark, July 19, 2007
As bees go missing, a $9.3B crisis lurks - By David Stipp, Fortune/CNN Money, August 28, 2007

Relevant discussion threads on AboveTopSecret.com

Bees vanish- all life has 4 yrs to live on Earth

I'd really appreciate it if someone could further elaborate on this.

line 2

so whats goin on with the bees? its 2011. any answers?