On 27 Sep 2007 Bill Truesdell wrote:

> We now live in a world dominated by "news singularities".
> One person who has a problem is put in front of a camera and the
> singularity is elevated to the entire population. CCD is classic. A small,
> in relative terms (it is never small when it happens to you), bee die-off
> was elevated to 80% kill-off on the east coast of the US, and bees
> disappearing nationwide, when none of this was true.

Bill, it's not just the popular press - even some researchers in the 
academic community are claiming the kill-off due to CCD is 
ongoing and extensive. See report below:

Ecology Letters - November 2007
 
Rachael Winfree, Neal M. Williams, Jonathan Dushoff, Claire Kremen 
(2007) Native bees provide insurance against ongoing honey bee losses
Ecology Letters 10 (11), 1105­1113.

LETTER

Rachael Winfree-Department of Environmental Science, Policy and
Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Neal M. Williams-Department of Biology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn
Mawr, PA 19010, USA,
Jonathan Dushoff-Department of Biology, McMaster University,
Hamilton, ON, L8S-4K1, Canada
Claire Kremen-Department of Environmental Science, Policy
and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Abstract

One of the values of biodiversity is that it may provide 'biological
insurance' for services currently rendered by domesticated species
or technology. We used crop pollination as a model system, and
investigated whether the loss of a domesticated pollinator (the honey
bee) could be compensated for by native, wild bee species. We
measured pollination provided to watermelon crops at 23 farms
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, USA, and used a simulation
model to separate the pollen provided by honey bees and native
bees. Simulation results predict that native bees alone provide
sufficient pollination at > 90% of the farms studied. Furthermore,
empirical total pollen deposition at flowers was strongly,
significantly correlated with native bee visitation but not with honey
bee visitation. The honey bee is currently undergoing extensive
die-offs because of Colony Collapse Disorder.  We predict that in
our region native bees will buffer potential declines in agricultural
production because of honey bee losses.

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