The Honey Bee "Die-Off"

We are experiencing an odd and somewhat scary vanishing act in our honey bees. We're not alone in the world, (I've found reports involving England, Brazil and Taiwan) but scientists don't even know if the disparate events are related.

Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

I've been hearing reports of this for weeks, but I find the uncertainty in the discussion distracting. If I'm not the one looking for answers then the ideas and theories are just speculation and suspicions. But this story has had precious few facts. The big theory a couple of weeks ago was that cell phones were suspect. This week it's parasites or some disease. The evidence is strong.

A quick experiment with some of the devastated hives makes pesticides seem less likely. In the recent experiment, Pettis and colleagues irradiated some hard-hit hives and reintroduced new bee colonies. More bees thrived in the irradiated hives than in the non-irradiated ones, pointing toward some kind of disease or parasite that was killed by radiation.
The parasite hypothesis has history and some new findings to give it a boost: A mite practically wiped out the wild honeybee in the U.S. in the 1990s. And another new one-celled parasitic fungus was found last week in a tiny sample of dead bees by University of California San Francisco molecular biologist Joe DeRisi, who isolated the human SARS virus.

The 90's, though, represent a recent decade and I can't remember any mention of it. Perhaps I've just forgotten or maybe the latest Clinton scandal simply overtook it's place in the news. This article by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer,
mentions other similar episodes in the more distant past, and seems to give the impression that it's not yet time to panic.
The article also includes the required enviro-nut expert...

Pulitzer Prize-winning insect biologist E.O. Wilson of Harvard said the honeybee is nature's "workhorse — and we took it for granted."
"We've hung our own future on a thread," Wilson, author of the book "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth," told The Associated Press on Monday.

Anyway, the Texas A&M UniversityEntomology Dept. has this for us...

CCD symptoms and beekeeper actions on suspicion of CCD are outlined below.

1. In collapsed colonies (dead colonies):
a. The complete absence of adult bees in colonies with no or little build-up of dead bees in the colonies or in front of those colonies.
b. The presence of capped (sealed) brood in colonies
c. The presence of food stores both honey and bee bread (pollen)
c1. Which is not robbed by other bees
c2. When attacked by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle, the attack is noticeably delayed.

2. In cases where the colony appears to be actively collapsing (dying):
a. An insufficient workforce to maintain the brood that is present.
b. The workforce seems to be made up of young adult bees.
c. The queen is present.
d. The cluster is reluctant to consume provided feed, such as sugar syrup and protein supplement.