The fourth characteristic used to describe CCD in its clearest 
form after colony losses in the fall of 2006 in the US is unusual and 
potentially revealing:  remaining honey stores are not robbed out and 
deadout hives are not invaded by small hive beetles and wax moth. 
 Since no clear pathogen has been found (although some suspected), a 
simpler explanation (which cannot be demonstrated at this point) is 
that a poorly dosed active ingredient for the control of varroa killed 
both adult bees and also was in enough concentration in dead hives to 
kill robber bees and beetles and moths.  The sudden emergence of 
a pathogen infectious and deadly to members of three orders of insects 
seems harder to believe in than an accidental poisoning.

 

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