Dee makes good points about winter and fungus, mold, yeast.  And I've  seen 
some mighty nasty looking pollen sub, if it sits in the colony without  being 
consumed.  So, a fungus, whether in soil, in hive, could be involved,  and I 
understand why its critical that we consider it.  As I  said, some of the Penn 
State folks are investigating that scenario.   Others are looking at viruses, 
and still others at imidacloprid with  respect to the  bee losses -- and I'd 
have to agree that each or all  are candidates.  We're looking at HMF and some 
other things.  Problem  is, every factor that might be involved is nullified in 
some instances --  although we may be looking at a common syndrome with 
multiple causes.
 
Dee did cause me to remember that we (UM), some years ago, did some work  
with Bassiana, a microbial pesticide.  It didn't affect bees in strong  colonies, 
but it was sensitive to elevated temperatures.  It did affect  adult honey 
bees in cages as well as bumble bees, but not adult honey  bees in strong 
colonies.  We thought it might be because the honey bee  colony keeps the 
temperature too high for the fungus to survive.  We did  note that once we had 
inoculated hives with this fungus, we could still recover  it some years later -- so it 
was persistent.
 
It would be ideal if one of the many factors, like a fungus is common to  all 
of the bee losses. I'm afraid I'm a skeptic with respect to many  of the 
obvious variables, like toxic honey dew, new chemicals, chemicals  inside hives, 
since I've already looked at too many cases -- we've now  documented the bee 
losses in 16 states. My prejudice, all of the chemicals  being thrown into hives 
has to have an adverse effect -- but an organic guy  in one of northern 
states doesn't use lots of chemicals, yet  experienced the same syndrome this fall.
 
As we get samples from different regions, and as people fill out surveys,  we 
hope to narrow down the field, with the Penn State and USDA ARS taking the  
lead with respect to possible biological agents and/or new generation  
pesticides.  We're focusing on the bigger picture, trying to get out and  sample over 
a broad scale, share samples with the rest of the group, overlay  maps of 
affected locations with climate data, etc. (trying to find out whether a  weather 
event may trigger, such as just the right conditions for a toxic fungus  to 
take off.  We're also trying some new approaches for identifying  sick/weak 
colonies.  So far, the CCD team has been freely sharing samples  and results -- 
and we all plan on next going to California, since we getting  reports from 
there, and USDA has a longer term study ongoing in California. 
 
If you've bees in California and are seeing this collapse, please let us  
know.  We may want to visit you.
 
Thank
 
Jerry
 
 

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