[nhnenews] Very Informative Overview Of 'Colony Collapse Disorder'

EDITOR'S COMMENT:

This is a comprehensive summary of the current crisis facing honeybees.
Among other things, it charts the history of "Colony Collapse Disorder" and
suggests possible causes and remedies. Of particular note is the author's
call for the mainstream media to start reporting on the fact that hives
cared for organically are unaffected -- and for society as a whole to move
towards long-term solutions by returning to "a more natural ecological
order".

In the spirit of encouraging more holistic (and sane) methods of beekeeping,
I have included a link to a Yahoo-based discussion list of organic
beekeepers (1255 members strong). It's purpose: "To establish a community
where beekeepers can learn Organic Beekeeping field management without the
use of drugs, chemicals, essential oils, FGMO, acids, fungicides,
bacterial/viral inhabitants, micro-organism stimuli, and artificial feeds."

--- David Sunfellow

------------

EXCERPTS:

Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic
beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a seat in
Ottawaąs House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% for Canadaąs
fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the provincial wing of her
party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:

"Iąm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans,
and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers,
is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big
commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for
varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the
hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination
services, which stresses the colonies."

Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site at
<http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm>. Here, Michael Bush felt compelled to put a
message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:

"Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. Iąm happy to say
my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter
and coming up with hives that wonąt hurt my back from lifting or better ways
to feed the bees.

"This change from fighting the mites is mostly because Iąve gone to natural
sized cells. In case you werenąt aware, and I wasnąt for a long time, the
foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would
find in a natural hive. Iąve measured sections of natural worker brood comb
that are 4.6mm in diameter. ŠWhat most people use for worker brood is
foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three
dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large
again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have
virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this
is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one
day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in
the cells."

Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that
the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger
than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we
here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working
Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media
coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?

............

Surprise -- itąs an ecosystem thing. As with honeybees and CCD, the root of
the bumblebee problem lies in our modern rationalist drive toward endlessly
ordering the world around us. The long-term solution is a return to a more
natural ecological order. This interpretation needs to be conveyed when
mainstream media tell the CCD story.

------------

EVERYTHING YOU DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER
By Peter Dearman
GNN (Guerrilla News Network)
May 2, 2007

http://www.laleva.org/eng/2007/05/everything_you_didnt_want_to_know_about_co
lony_collapse_disorder.html

Please Lord, not the bees.

It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and
there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit
producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one,
they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown.

Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has
always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a
strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has
been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and
apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First
reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now
expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and
possibly Canada. (1)(24)(29)

Apparently unknown before this year, CCD is said to follow a unique pattern
with several strange characteristics. Bees seem to desert their hive or
forget to return home from their foraging runs. The hive population dwindles
and then collapses once there are too few bees to maintain it. Typically, no
dead bee carcasses lie in or around the afflicted hive, although the queen
and a few attendants may remain.

The defect, whatever it is, afflicts the adult bee. Larvae continue to
develop normally, even as a hive is in the midst of collapse. Stricken
colonies may appear normal, as seen from the outside, but when beekeepers
look inside the hive box, they find a small number of mature bees caring for
a large number of younger and developing bees that remain. Normally, only
the oldest bees go out foraging for nectar and pollen, while younger workers
act as nurse bees caring for the larvae and cleaning the comb. A healthy
hive in mid-summer has between 40,000 and 80,000 bees.

Perhaps the most ominous thing about CCD, and one of its most distinguishing
characteristics, is that bees and other animals living nearby refrain from
raiding the honey and pollen stored away in the dead hive. In previously
observed cases of hive collapse (and it is certainly not a rare occurrence)
these energy stores are quickly stolen. But with CCD the invasion of hive
pests such as the wax moth and small hive beetle is noticeably delayed. (2)

Among the possible culprits behind CCD are: a fungus, a virus, a bacterium,
a pesticide (or combination of pesticides), GMO crops bearing pesticide
genes, erratic weather, or even cell phone radiation. łThe odds are some
neurotoxin is whatąs causing it,˛ said David VanderDussen, a Canadian
beekeeper who recently won an award for developing an environmentally
friendly mite repellent. Then again, according to Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the
top bee specialist with the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture,
łWe are pretty sure, but not certain, that it is a contagious disease.˛
Their comments notwithstanding, most scientists are unwilling to say they
understand the problem beyond describing its outward appearance. Perhaps a
government or UN task force would be a good idea right about now. (3)(25)

According to an FAQ published on March 9, 2007 by the Colony Collapse
Disorder Working Group based primarily at Penn State University, the first
report of CCD was made in mid-November 2006 by Dave Hackenberg, a
Pennsylvania beekeeper overwintering his 2900 hives in Florida. Only 1000
survived. Soon other migratory beekeepers reported similar heavy losses.
Subsequent reports from beekeepers painted a picture of a marked increase in
die-offs, which led to the present concern among bee experts. (2)

The name CCD was invented by vanEngelsdorp and his colleagues at Penn State.
It reflects their somewhat medical view of the situation. The BBC suggested
in a sub-headline to a story on CCD that the problem would be more aptly
named the łvanishing bee syndrome.˛ This proposal may have merit,
considering how mass opinion polls influence policy these days. (4)

News of the CCD problem hit all of the major media networks in February
2006. A widely run Associated Press story said reports of unusual colony
deaths have come in from at least 22 states, and that some commercial
beekeepers reported losing more than half of their bees. The same story
informed that autopsies of CCD bees showed higher than normal levels of
fungi, bacteria and other pathogens, as well as weakened immune systems. It
appears as if the bees have got the equivalent of AIDS. (5)

An April 15, 2007 story in The Independent reported that the west coast of
the U.S. may have lost 60% of its commercial bee population, with an even
greater 70% loss on the east coast. The same story said that one of Londonąs
biggest bee-keepers recently reported 23 of his 40 hives empty. But, the
U.K. Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was quoted as
saying, łThere is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK.˛ (6)

One must wonder where the truth lies considering the level of sensationalism
prevalent in the British press. Case in point, this same story (among
several others, to be fair) attributes a juicy but dubious quote to
Einstein: łIf the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man
would only have four years of life left.˛ (6)(7)

Einstein, in all likelihood, never said that, but if he did, it is a
justifiable exaggeration. Bees certainly are important, and it will get ugly
if we lose them. łItąs not the staples,˛ said Jeff Pettis of the U.S.
Agricultural Research Service. łIf you can imagine eating a bowl of oatmeal
every day with no fruit on it, thatąs what it would be like˛ without
honeybee pollination. (8)

The beekeeping industry underpins the American agricultural industry to the
tune of $US 15 billion or more. The picture is similar in many countries,
especially in the West. Honey bees are used commercially to pollinate about
one third of crop species in the U.S. This includes almonds, broccoli,
peaches, soybeans, apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries,
cranberries, and strawberries. Other insects, including other kinds of bees,
may be used to pollinate some of these crops, but only bees are reliable on
a commercial scale. If the bees go, we will see a change for the worse at
our local supermarkets. (1)

Of course everyone is hoping for a quick solution to appear, and tantalizing
reports have emerged. Recent military research at Edgewood Chemical
Biological Center claims to have narrowed the likely cause of CCD to a
virus, a micro-parasite or both. This work used a new technology called the
Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS), which can rapidly screen samples
for pathogens.

These virus laden samples were sent to UC San Francisco, where a suspicious
fungus was also discovered in them, suggesting the possibility that the
fungus is either an immunosuppressive factor or the fatal pathogen that
kills the bees. These łhighly preliminary˛ findings were announced in an
April 25, 2007 Los Angeles Times story with the headline, łExperts may have
found whatąs bugging the bees.˛ The story called it łthe first solid
evidence pointing to a potential cause,˛ and even noted that łthere is
reason to believe this fungus can be controlled by the antibiotic
fumagillin.˛ (10) (25)

One wonders why the trade name of a pesticide made it into such a story, but
the presence of pathogens in bees should come as no surprise to anyone who
has been keeping up to date on bee health. Nearly all beekeepers use a
variety of chemical and pesticide treatments on their hive boxes out of
sheer necessity. A pantheon of mites, fungi and microbes prey on bees. These
pests are predictably developing resistance to the chemical treatments we
use to fight them. If the new IVDS results are conclusive and lead to a
silver bullet solution, that will be wonderful, but such a simple model of
CCD is unlikely to be the real key to saving our prime pollinators. (9)

It is worth noting that, while CCD has been presented to the media as a
sudden new problem, these same theories about causative infections have
already been presented to explain previous bee die-offs, especially those in
the spring of 2005, which were attributed to the now infamous varroa mite,
a.k.a. łvampire mite,˛ which began infecting American honey bees in 1987.
(31)

About the size of a pinhead, and with eight legs, it feeds on the blood of
adult bees like a tick, and even worse, it also eats the bee larvae. Varroa
is the bane of beekeepers everywhere except China, where it originated, and
the honey bees have local resistance. In a case of sadly ironic timing,
Hawaii just reported its first case of varroa a few weeks ago. (26)

LiveScience senior writer, Robert Roy Britt wrote in a May, 2005 story about
the mite: łUp to 60 percent of hives in some regions have been wiped out.
Entire colonies can collapse within two weeks of being infested. North
Carolina fears it is on the verge of an agricultural crisis. No state is
immune.˛ (11)

A Science Daily story dated May 18, 2005, and sourced to Penn State,
purported to explain why varroa was so bad. Entitled, łBee Mites Suppress
Bee Immunity, Open Door for Viruses and Bacteria,˛ it explained research
into levels of Śdeformed wing virus,ą a mutagenic pathogen that is believed
to persist in bee populations because it makes guard bees more aggressive.
Bees of a given hive normally carry low levels of this virus, but the Penn
State researchers found that virus levels shot sky high during secondary
infections if, and only if, the bees also had varroa mites. It should be
clear why the varroa mite is on everyoneąs list of things to examine in the
fight against CCD. (12)

Another perspective

Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic
beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a seat in
Ottawaąs House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% for Canadaąs
fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the provincial wing of her
party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:

Iąm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans,
and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers,
is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big
commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for
varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the
hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination
services, which stresses the colonies. (13)

Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site at
<http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm>. Here, Michael Bush felt compelled to put a
message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:

Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. Iąm happy to say
my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter
and coming up with hives that wonąt hurt my back from lifting or better ways
to feed the bees.

This change from fighting the mites is mostly because Iąve gone to natural
sized cells. In case you werenąt aware, and I wasnąt for a long time, the
foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would
find in a natural hive. Iąve measured sections of natural worker brood comb
that are 4.6mm in diameter. ŠWhat most people use for worker brood is
foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three
dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large
again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have
virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this
is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one
day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in
the cells. (14)

Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that
the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger
than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we
here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working
Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media
coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion
that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck
from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that
some biological limit in the bees has been crossed. There is no shortage of
evidence that we have been fast approaching this limit for some time.

łWeąve been pushing them too hard,˛ Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate professor
of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told the
CBC. łAnd weąre starving them out by feeding them artificially and moving
them great distances.˛ Given the stress commercial bees are under, Kevan
suggests CCD might be caused by parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or
long wet springs, or pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe itąs
all of the above. (24)

This conclusion is not surprising, considering how the practice of
beekeeping has been made ultra-efficient in a competitive world run by free
market forces. Unlike many crops, honey is not given subsidy protection in
the United States despite the huge importance of the bee industry to food
production. The FDA has hardly moved at all to protect American producers
from łhoney pretenders˛ products containing little or no honey that are
imported and sold with misleading packaging. Rare is the beekeeper that does
not need pesticide treatments and other techniques falling under the rubric
of Śfactory farming.ą (15)

You might be justifiably stunned to know how little money is being thrown at
this problem. A January 29, 2007 Penn State press release (just before CCD
hit the big networks) stated: łThe beekeeping industry has been quick to
respond to the crisis. The National Honey Board has pledged $13,000 of
emergency funding to the CCD working group. Other organizations, such as the
Florida State Beekeepers Association, are working with their membership to
commit additional funds.˛ A quick look at CostofWar.com will tell you that
that $13,000 buys about 4 seconds of war at the going rate. Remember, these
same scientists had presented the world with a similar threat level two
years ago. Apparently they were ignored. (16)

Anyway, breathe easy; Congress has begun talking up the concept of getting
involved. On April 26, the Senate Agriculture Committee, perhaps not
trusting CNN, heard from representatives of the beekeeping industry just how
important a matter this is. Committee Chairman, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
said the bee decline should be part of the current discussion of a new farm
bill. łThe U.S. honey industry is facing one of the most serious threats
ever from colony collapse disorder,˛ he stated. łThe bee losses associated
with this disorder are staggering and portend equally grave consequences for
the producers of crops that rely on honeybees for pollination. These crops
include many specialty crops and alfalfa, so viable honey bee colonies are
critically important across our entire food and agriculture sector.˛ (17)

Alfalfa? We should be worried because CCD threatens alfalfa and other
specialty crops? He means apples and stuff we can assume, because Mark
Brady, president of the American Honey Producers Association, had informed
the committee that łhoney bees pollinate more than 90 food, fiber and seed
crops. In particular, the fruits, vegetables and nuts that are cornerstones
of a balanced and healthy diet are especially dependent on continued access
to honey bee pollination.˛ Science is always a hard sell. (17)

Even before that committee meeting, on April 16, Senator Clinton wrote a
letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Mike Johanns,
asking łthat you provide us (a bipartisan group of senators) with an
expedited report on the immediate steps that the Department is and will be
taking to determine the causes of CCD, and to develop appropriate
countermeasures for this serious disorder. In particular, we ask for a
specific explanation of how the Department plans to utilize its existing
resources and capabilities, including its four Agricultural Research Service
honeybee research labs, and to work with other public and private sector
enterprises in combating CCD.˛ These are fine questions indeed. (28)

Hype or understatement?

Bees are finely tuned machines, much more robot-like than your average
species. They operate pretty much like the Borg of Star Trek fame. A honey
bee cannot exist as an individual, and this is why some biologists speak of
them as super-organisms. They are sensitive barometers of environmental
pollution, quite useful for monitoring pesticide, radionuclide, and heavy
metal contamination. They respond to a vide variety of pollutants by dying
or markedly changing their behavior. Honeybeesą stores of pollen and honey
are ideal for measuring contamination levels. Some pesticides are
exceptionally harmful to honey bees, killing individuals before they can
return to the hive. (18)

Not surprisingly, the use of one or more new pesticides was, and likely
remains, on the short list of likely causes of CCD. But more than pesticides
could potentially be harming bees. Some scientists suspect global warming.
Temperature plays an integral part in determining mass behavior of bees. To
mention just one temperature response, each bee acts as a drone thermostat,
helping cool or warm the hive whenever it isnąt engaged in some other
routine.

As you might expect, rising temperatures in springtime cause bees to become
active. Erratic weather patterns caused by global warming could play havoc
with beesą sensitive cycles. A lot of northeastern U.S. beekeepers say a
late cold snap is what did the damage to them this year. Bill Draper, a
Michigan beekeeper, lost more than half of his 240 hives this spring, but it
wasnąt his worst year for bee losses, and he doesnąt think CCD caused it. He
thinks CCD might stem from a mix of factors from climate change to breeding
practices that put more emphasis on some qualities, like resistance to
mites, at the expense of other qualities, like hardiness. (32)

According to Kenneth Tignor, the state apiarist of Virginia, another
possibility with CCD is that the missing bees left their hives to look for
new quarters because the old hives became undesirable, perhaps from
contamination of the honey. This phenomenon, known as absconding, normally
occurs only in the spring or summer, when there is an adequate food supply.
But if they abscond in the autumn or winter, as they did last fall in the
U.S., Tignor says the bees are unlikely to survive. (19)

A bee colony is a fine-tuned system, and a lot could conceivably go wrong.
This is presumably why some scientists suspect cell phone radiation is the
culprit behind CCD. This theory holds that radiation from mobile phones
interferes with bee navigation systems, preventing them from finding their
way home. German research has shown that bees behave differently near power
lines. Now, a preliminary study has found that bees refuse to return to
their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. The head researcher said
the result might provide a łhint˛ of a possible cause. Maybe they should
check to see if beekeepers suddenly started using BlackBerrys in 2004.

It should be noted that the CCD Working Group at Penn State believes cell
phones are very unlikely to be causing the problem. Nor are they interested
in the possibility that GMO crops are responsible. Although GMO crops can
contain genes to produce pesticides, some of which may harm bees, the
distribution of CCD cases does not appear to correlate with GMO crop
plantings. (20)

Honey bees are not native to North America or Europe. They are thought to
come from Southeast Asia, although some recent research based on genomic
studies indicates that their origin is actually in Africa. (21) Regardless,
they represent only seven of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees.
Apis mellifera, the most commonly domesticated species of honey bee, was
only the third insect to have its genome mapped. These useful, and very
prevalent, bees are commonly referred to as either Western honey bees or
European honey bees. Although it is a non-native species, the honey bee has
fit in well in America. It is the designated state insect of fifteen states,
which surely reflects its usefulness.

Apis mellifera comes in a wide variety of sub-species adapted to different
climates and geographies. Behavior, color and anatomy can be quite different
from one sub-species to another, the infamous killer bees being a case in
point. The Native Americans called the honey bee łthe white manąs fly.˛ It
was introduced to North America by European settlers in the early 1600s, and
soon escaped into the wild, spreading as far west as the Rocky Mountains.
Thus, there are significant numbers of feral hives in North America, though
most of the honey bees you will see are working bees.

But you may not have even seen one for a while. These days, many gardeners
are discovering that they must hand pollinate garden vegetables, thanks to
widespread pollinator decline. It is more than fair to say that the extreme
importance of honey bees as pollinators today stems from the fact that
native pollinators are in decline almost everywhere.

The pollination of the American almond crop, which occurs in February and
March, is the largest managed pollination event in the world, requiring more
than one third of all the managed honey bees in the United States. Massive
numbers of hives are transported for this and other key pollinations,
including apples and blueberries. Honey bees are not particularly efficient
pollinators of blueberries, but they are used anyway. We depend on managed
honey bees because we are addicted to a monoculture-based managed
agricultural sector.

There has been criticism that media coverage of the CCD story, perhaps in
its quest to achieve the requisite Śbalance,ą has been too rosy. Some
stories note that other pollinators are more significant than honey bees for
many crops. But these stories seldom go on to tell how other pollinators are
facing problems too. The BBC recently reported on the Bumblebee Conservation
Trust, which is currently enlisting the publicąs help to catalogue bumblebee
populations. The story noted that several of the U.K.ąs 25 species are
endangered, and three have gone extinct in recent years. (22)

Another recent story in The Register stated that several U.K. bumblebee
species are łheading inexorably for extinction.˛ According to scientists,
the process is caused by łpesticides and agricultural intensification˛ which
could have a łdevastating knock-on effect on agriculture.˛ The disappearance
of wildflower species has also been implicated in the British bumblebee
decline. (23)(20)

Bumblebees are, however, doing well in one region, Neath Port Talbot, which
was declared the bumblebee capital of Wales in 2004 after experts found 15
different species thriving there. This is almost certainly because the local
council allows roadside verges to become overgrown with łweeds˛ and
wildflowers. (20)

Surprise -- itąs an ecosystem thing. As with honeybees and CCD, the root of
the bumblebee problem lies in our modern rationalist drive toward endlessly
ordering the world around us. The long-term solution is a return to a more
natural ecological order. This interpretation needs to be conveyed when
mainstream media tell the CCD story.

Of course, with all the parasites, pathogens, pesticides and transit to
stress out our hardworking honey bees, they are in peril. Even if some
silver bullet saves us from CCD, it is more than obvious that we need to pay
more respect to bees, and to nature. This truth may be generalized to most
facets of our agricultural existence; the bees are just a warning. Wherever
you look, pests are getting stronger as the life forms we depend on get
weaker. Adding more chemicals isnąt going to help for much longer.

Beekeepers are a busy and underpaid lot, and we should pay more heed to
their services. Even now, with the vanishing bee story headlining on major
networks, government players appear to have their eyes elsewhere. łThere
used to be a lot more regulation than there is today,˛ says Arizona
beekeeper Victor Kaur. łPeople import bees and bring new diseases into the
country. One might be colony collapse disorder.˛ (30)

łThe bees are dying, and I think people are to blame,˛ is how Kaur puts it
simply. łBee keeping is much more labor intensive now than it was 15 years
ago. Itąs a dying profession,˛ he eulogizes. łThe average age of a beekeeper
is 62, and there are only a couple of thousand of us left. There are only
about 2.5 million hives left. ŠItąs too much work.˛ (30)

If CCD proves to be more than a one-time seasonal fluke, the job of
beekeeping just got a lot harder. Pollination canąt be outsourced, although
it isnąt too difficult to imagine fields full of exploited underclass
laborers pollinating crops by Q-tip. Letąs hope we never have to go there.

Perhaps a sensible reaction to the information summarized in this short
article would be to write a letter to your government leaders. Insist that
they immediately allocate significant funding to combat CCD using a variety
of approaches. This must include ecological approaches such as wildflower
renewal. Furthermore, insist that our few remaining beekeepers be given the
support they deserve and desperately need at this important juncture.
Humanity cannot afford to ignore this battle. Itąs not science; itąs common
sense.

References:

http://www.laleva.org/eng/2007/05/everything_you_didnt_want_to_know_about_co
lony_collapse_disorder.html

------------

IMPORTANT RESOURCES:

WIKIPEDIA ON COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

MAAREC COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER WEBSITE:
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/ColonyCollapseDisorder.html

MAP OF U.S. STATES REPORTING COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER:
http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/pressReleases/CCDMap07FebRev1-.jpg

THE WAY BACK TO BIOLOGICAL BEEKEEPING (DEE LUSBY):
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm

BUSH BEES WEBSITE (ORGANIC BEE WEBSITE):
http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm

YAHOO ORGANIC BEEKEEPERS DISCUSSION LIST:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/

GENERAL BEE ARTICLES & REPORTS:
http://www.beesource.com/news/index.htm

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES STUDY ON POLLINATORS:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id11761

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PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

HONEYBEE DIE-OFF THREATENS FOOD SUPPLY (5/3/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12930

HONEYBEE COLLAPSE MYTHS (5/2/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12924

BEES VANISH, & SCIENTISTS RACE FOR REASONS (4/25/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12895

ORGANIC & KILLER BEES SEEM RESISTANT TO 'COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER'
(4/24/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12889

HONEY BEE DIE-OFF ALARMS BEEKEEPERS, CROP GROWERS & RESEARCHERS (4/24/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12888

HONEY BEE EXPERTS GATHER TO POOL KNOWLEDGE (4/22/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12880

HONEY BEE DIE-OFF RESOURCES (4/17/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12857

ARE MOBILE PHONES WIPING OUT OUR BEES? (4/15/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12851

BEE COLONIES ACROSS U.S. CONTINUE TO DIE (4/7/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12825

ARE GM CROPS KILLING BEES? (3/23/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12754

HONEYBEES VANISH, LEAVING KEEPERS IN PERIL (2/27/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12647

U.S. BEE COLONIES DECIMATED BY MYSTERIOUS AILMENT (2/14/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12588

PARASITE DEVASTATES U.S. BEES (5/2/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9104

MAD BEE DISEASE (2/20/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1181

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NHNE Factory Farming Resource Page:
http://www.nhne.org/tabid/451/Default.aspx

NHNE Factory Farming (& Cruelty To Animals) News Stories:
http://tinyurl.com/hmy5k