> Just imagine the practical implications if such a powerfully 
> repellent chemical really existed (could be used in fruit 
> packing plants, candy factories, cinnamon roll bakeries, 
> around trash dumpsters and so forth).

This specific aspect of CCD interests me, and I know a thing
or two about "bee repellents".  :)

So, lets walk through this...

1) To "repel" bees from an entire hive (not just a super) 
   you'd need one heck of a volatile compound of some sort.  
   The "distance" at which this stuff seems to repel bees 
   and pests is from a foot to several feet.  I'm surprised 
   that there is no human-detectable odor, as everything 
   beekeepers have ever used to drive bees out of supers has 
   been something that humans could also smell.
   
2) Something so volatile would oxidize/react very quickly, 
   and "evaporate" in the process, which would mean that it 
   would "wear off" quickly, and no longer be repellent.

3) But it does not seem to "wear off" quickly.  This
   seems to contradicts the "highly volatile" quality, 
   so the easy answer is that >>>something is making more 
   of this compound continuously<<<.  It can't be a mere
   chemical process, it has to be a byproduct of an ongoing
   biological process, one that lives on after the bees are
   gone from a CCD dead-out.

One would think that such a thing would be easy to find.
So far, no one has found any volatiles, or any biological
process that might produce this "repellent effect".

If we ever figure out what it is, the "good" side-effect 
of repelling bee pests will likely be overshadowed by
the "bad" aspect of it being connected with CCD.

From preliminary results, it appears that one can
decontaminate combs from CCD dead-outs with either
irradiation, or acetic acid, as mentioned in the
"Catch The Buzz" e-mail newsletter from Bee Culture:
http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2007.04.26.08.42.archive.html

So, the reasonable conclusion is that this is something
that we can "kill", which implies that it is something that
can live on comb, even dead-out or abandoned comb.

But you'd think something like that would be fairly easy to
find, yet it has not been found so far.




   

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