Last week, Jim and Bob were speculating on the potential matchup between CCD symptoms and pesticide kill symptoms.  Bob said that a pesticide kill would draw out more and more foragers until none were left as housebees.  One of Jim's rebuttal points was that the CCD-affected hives are reported to be well-stocked with stores.

Have the CCD-affected hives been checked to see if the stores are really viable?  I have a hypothesis.  I'd be interested to know if it's been tested.

In my area (and many other areas that I've heard of), there are serious reports of pollen-bound frames.  After a season or two, the pollen goes stale and is never used.  I'm not sure how the bees know which pollen to use and which to ignore but no matter how much of a dearth there is they never consume the stale pollen.  It just clogs up the frames.  The problem is often obscured by a thin layer of honey.  In fact, the problem is so serious that a fair number of winter starvations resulted even though the colonies went into the winter with two deeps apparently full.  As an experiment last year, I extracted 10 deep frames.  All were capped and apparently full.  Instead of the expected 60-80 pounds of honey, I got less than 19 pounds out.  The rest was old pollen.

If the stored pollen is no longer useful, I suspect that you could see the described CCD-pattern even though there is something resembling pollen still in the hive.

In a separate message, Randy speculated about a connection between CCD and spraying for West Nile virus.  In my area, we've had West Nile spraying about twice a year for several years.  (They've never told me what they're spraying.)  The spraying was conducted between early and late evening - a few bees were still flying.  There have been no reported cases of CCD-like symptoms in the immediate area at all, much less timed to match the spraying.  


Mike Rossander
       
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