>Nancy Ostiguy, an entomologist at Penn State University, sees signs that
the
culprit is a new pathogen. She notes that the abandoned colonies are filled
with food.

If a new pathogen I think the pathogen would have turned up by now. Also
many of those CCD deadouts were short on pollen. Food is a primitave
statement for the general public. Not a term I would think Nancy would use.

The article reads to me like the author read what has been published so far
and put together an article. I would guess the author has never seen the
inside of a bee hive close up.

consider:
If a new pathogen was killing the bees then why are the bees not dead in the
hive like a normal large pathogen kill?

>Yet even after France banned imidacloprid in 1999, honey¬bee populations in
France continued to plummet, according to Decourtye's collaborator Nicolas
Desneux of the University of Minnesota.

 I have been in contact with a commercial beekeeper in France since last
fall and he says when imidacloprid was banned the problem returned to simply
mites and weather etc.. I am working on getting French
researchers/beekeepers to speak at the joint meeting of the ABF & AHPA. in
January.

Its common knowledge with French beekeepers that the seller  of imidacloprid
wants access to the French market again.

Also a new report is soon to be released showing what pesticides was found
in the CCD hives pollen I heard this week . Many pesticides  was what I was
told.

*If* fact then pesticide issues might move from number four on their list to
number one!

bob

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