"Peter Detchon"
There does seem to be a remarkable similarity between the symptoms of CCD 
and those associated with "Marie Celeste Syndrome" in the UK (see 
http://www.defra.gov.uk/hort/Bees/pdf/bees-meeting2005.pdf ).
Dave Cushman's website carries an extensive list of problems being 
experienced in the UK with queen matings and drones health and fitness as 
observed by Roger Patterson ( 
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/rogerpatterson.html ).

I would urge caution here.  Roger Patterson has managed to gain considerable 
publicity for his claims, but little actual support as far as I can see from 
beekeeping organisations (amateur or professional), or from the National Bee 
Unit - there is no Jerry Bromenshenk look-alike rushing around the UK!

I believe that there have been queen failures, but whether they are higher 
than might be expected is not clear and may well be down to natural events 
or beekeeper incompeetence, e.g. the weather for the last two springs were 
very poor and queens raised early may well have failed to mate properly; 
there are known effects of some varroa treatments on the fertility of queens 
and drones; many beekeepers are still using Apistan in areas where there are 
resistant mites; some beekeepers are experimenting with multiple treatments 
of oxalic acid.  Numbers of drones are down due to the loss of feral 
colonies and, to make matters worse, some beekeepers are removing large 
amounts of drone brood to keep varroa levels down.

Last year I reared over a hundred queens.  Of those, one had a deformed wing 
(probably due to my clumsy handling of the queen cell) and a couple failed 
to mate satisfactorily - the rest were fine.  Of course, I use only thymol 
for varroa treatment - and I did increase the drone population in my mating 
apiary by using additional drone comb.

So far this spring I have visited around 130 of my colonies (too cold to 
open them) and found two dead.  One had been destroyed by a rat and the 
other could have been called Marie Celeste as it was virtually empty - but 
closer examination showed that the queen (from 2004) had become a drone 
layer and the colony had dwindled to nothing and then died.  Most colonies 
were very active in the sunshine this week, with good pollen loads going in.

I have had one or two reports from other beekeepers of Marie Celeste hives - 
not many, just a handful - and in each case it has been easy to establish 
the true reason, e.g. no varroa treatment ("there were none in the autumn" - 
oh yes?) or problems with very late swarms where the queen, unsurprisingly 
failed to mate.

I remain to be convinced that we have any problem in the UK that cannot be 
explained fairly easily.  Something that might help would be the keeping of 
proper records (both of colonies and the weather) so that beekeepers could 
look back and, with just a little effort, see that much of what happens 
today could have been predicted some time ago.

Best wishes

Peter Edwards
[log in to unmask]
www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/

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