A few point to clarify on the ob hives that I watched dwindle.  Queens were present (marked) until the end when that last cluster of bees totally went "poof" and disappeared.  Queenlessness was not suspected, and these were still one-year old queens that should have had better potential. 
 
Affected hives were not necessarily strong to start with, which made me leery of claiming CCD.  It's like they never got the memo to go to work.  Their passion smoldered and soon went out.
 
The affected hives were very random, maybe only one in every other bee yard so I'm not too quick to blame any kind of pesticide or spray.  Next to them were healthy hives.  I wondered if something caused bees to leave one hive and drift over to a functional hive.
 
And again, I'm working on a definition of CCD that has a rapid decline from a healthy hive to nothing, with stores and brood left behind.   Maybe I need to widen my definition.
 
I remember a quote from last year's Sacramento conference where many claims of CCD were really cases of PPB (Probably Poor Beekeeping).  I'm not ready to use CCD as a scape-goat, but I sure would like to reduce the occurrence of this funny thing this next year.
 
Hope to see you all in Reno next week.
 
Grant
Jackson, MO


      

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