>--- J. Waggle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I am in support of the CCD investigation, but the
>habit of grouping all unexplained losses under the
>category of CCD is IMO, counter productive, and will
>hamper honest efforts to find the real cause.

Joe's statement sums up my view and, I suspect, views 
of the other northerners arguing against automatic CCD 
diagnoses of winter deadouts with few remaining bees.
During the past decade in New Hampshire, we've seen major 
winter losses (50-90%) on a 2-3 year cycle in operations 
that run 50-200 colonies.  If weather permits some flight at
time of death, then the hives are empty.  Otherwise the
corpses pile up on the bottom board.  Mortality rates correlate
with varroa levels in August and September, including varroa
levels in neighboring operations.  I explained the mechanism
in a post last month.

I remember a talk by Dewey Caron just before CCD broke where 
he described a 3-year cycle of major losses as being 'normal'
in the Northeast.  I believe he pinned the blame on varroa.

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