Pete,
I agree with Jerry--the sudden depopulation of hives in "CCD" (which I
prefer to call "sudden colony depopulation" has different symptoms than a
varroa/DWV collapse, although in both cases, the colony winds up
depopulated.

Bob is correct in that something changed about 9 years ago.

However, as far as the "aimlessness" that you question about, it appears to
me that some portion of the exiting bees apparently drift to closely
adjacent hives, in the process transmitting the pathogen(s) responsible for
the disease.  In virtually all my field trials, colony mortality occurs in
a clumped distribution.  One hive starts to go, and then the hive on either
side or behind, and so on.

This of course would not be due to pesticide exposure (not that pesticide
exposure is not a contributing factor in many losses), but is apparently
due to one or more transmissible pathogens.  I will be writing about this
in more detail soon in ABJ.


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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