The English language has some great words and phrases. Ephemeral, 
will-of-the-wisp, CCD.

I have a strong feeling that we are engaged in the pursuit of something 
that will not be found, while the real problem is right in front of our 
face.

Let us say, even though I doubt it, we find the underlying cause of CCD. 
You would then be able to rule out most of the other colony collapses 
and the end result could be that the problem is manageable or seasonal. 
Nosema, use Fumidil. End of problem, end of funding, end of disaster relief.

Meanwhile, the real problem of beekeeping in the US is mites and the 
pathogens that thrive in their presence. That will continue and all the 
attention will disappear, just as it has since the first Tracheal mite.

The team seems intent on ruling out (to me, the obvious) mites. Over the 
past decades mites have been the real scourge of bees. All the pathogens 
we now suffer from were there before mites. The different virus were 
known to exist with bees but were considered a small problem since they 
did little damage. Most beekeepers, including Inspectors, had never seen 
virus at work in a colony. Now symptoms are commonplace and the only 
change is mites. In fact, some of the virus and other pathogens still 
have not had all their symptoms identified when a colony is under 
multiple infections and/or both mites.

It really does not matter if he cause of CCD is some new pathogen. It 
may not even be new but just one more thing that can infect bees through 
mites.

It might be something a simple as a natural control of numbers. Nature 
does not like one species getting too numerous, especially bugs. There 
are a variety of controls imposed by nature which include fungus, virus 
and other nasties that will spread rapidly within a group if they are in 
close proximity, which means there are too many of them. That would be 
aided by weakened immune systems. Mites again.

The beekeeping community and the CCD group should change the emphasis 
from CDD, whatever it is or may be, to mites as the overriding problem 
and get Congress also interested. CCD is a subset of a problem suffered 
by most beekeepers world wide, not the major problem.

We have a known problem that takes more bees every year from more 
beekeepers than CCD did, has, or probably ever will. That is the real 
beekeeping issue.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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