Thanks Brian for that link.

I'm wondering:

Has anyone seen a report that shows the world-wide situation for the 
disappearance of bees from their hives so far?

My observations:
Since I only own a few hives it is harder to make accurate conclusions, 
but my losses this year are so far 70% and thereby my highest losses so 
far. For my situation it is important to name that the hives are 
stationary in a mixed bushy/farmland area with no professional farmers 
nearby and to my knowledge no chemicals used on any of that farmland. 
The hobby farmers here have not used any gene-modified crops either.
Since I started beekeeping 4 years ago no chemicals of any kind have 
ever been used in the hives to control pests or diseases and so far I 
have not been able to find any Varroa in my hives. Of course there could 
be mites present that would only show up after forcing a drop down by 
chemicals, but I have refused to use them so far. With large scale 
infestation, some specific signs would have been found and I would have 
found some dead mites between the droppings on the floorboards. My hives 
are not in the vicinity of any other apiaries so there was no direct 
danger or concern either that my hives could cause problems to other 
apiaries. I am not completely organic yet, since the foundation that I 
have bought could very well have contained residues of Apistan or other 
substances that originated from other beekeepers. No requeening has 
taken part in 2006 by my hand that could have introduced a new problem. 
My bees have in the past years not been fed syrup or sugar solutions for 
the wintering, enough honey is left behind for them in stead.
But with all the previous taken in account, whatever caused the fleeing 
of my own colonies it seems fair to conclude that it had nothing to do with:
- chemical use on my part
- pesticide use of farmers
- gene-modified nectar or pollen sources
- requeening
- winter feeding
- lack of varieties in nectar and pollen

When the weather conditions improve and temperatures rise I hope to get 
a chance to dive deeper in the hives and see if anything out of the 
ordinary can be found, like a disease or external causes like mice or pests.

Ron van Mierlo
Sweden

Brian Fredericksen skrev:
> Dr. Marla Spivak and CCD poster boy David Hackenberg interviewed on a local public radio call in 
> show
>
> http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/03/08/midmorning2/
>
> ............

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