Aaron Morris's comments were concise and objective: We and other members of the CCD team are trying to resolve a problem, not play police. No one would be likely to ask any of us to come look at CCD colonies if they thought we were going to report/turn them in. Only a small number of affected beekeepers have been brave enough to publicly admit to having a problem. Who wants to rent colonies for pollination or buy queens or packages from someone who may have CCD? Just look at the recent posts on Bee-L. And, no one knows if CCD is a disease, so there's no authority to stop shipments AND no justifiable reason - can you jeopardize a beekeeper's business just because he/she might have an unknown, unproven disease? and - Is it possible that 'surviving' queens and bees MIGHT be the ones you want (possibly CCD resistant?). And if its a pesticide or environmental toxin, its a local problem, and non-contagious unless you buy nucs with contaminated wax or food stores - a transport and fate, not a disease problem. All in all, far too many unknowns. Jim Fischer's comments are also correct - this was in some cases a self-correcting problem. And, Bob Harrison has an important point, the only sure way to avoid problems is to produce your own, healthy bees and queens. Gosh, Aaron, Jim, and Bob all more or less in agreement - that may be historic. Now, in terms of who paid for studies, etc. Most of the members of the CCD working group come from federal government or state government (state inspection services) or academic institutions. Most of the federal and state folks can't charge for their services, since they are paid to do this work as part of their job description. Academics may draw on their institutional salaries to do this work, but many can and do charge for additional 'research' services (usually as grants, etc. that either provide summer salaries - not provided by their institution, or as some form allow them to buy out some of their university salary time). Some academics moonlight as consultants, over and above their university job. However, many institutions disallow or make this very difficult. However, I don't think any university person has gotten much, and I know that most haven't received any money to work on CCD. We at Bee Alert research work on many projects through the University (the basic research is done at the UM, such as our landmine and laser technology work), but we also work on applied problem solving via our University affiliated small business. Bee Alert Tech is a private business, and we do conduct contract work, where the client who hires us owns the data. Our CCD work has been conducted under the auspices of this business, Bee Alert Technology, Inc. - much of it on our own nickel, some on donations, the acoustic sampling under government funds, and some of the work as consultants, with new work that is being done under an award from the NHB to look at the chemistry of samples that have been sitting in freezers. These bee/pollen/comb samples have been awaiting external funding, since it costs significant amounts of money to conduct/contract the specialized chemical analysis needed to look for an unknown, yet possibly repellant or toxic chemical in the CCD colonies than might account for the absence of robbing, invasion by pests. We DO NOT have the answer to this question, not because, as Ames Farms says - 'this defies science', but simply because we've only recently acquired sufficient funds to launch this work. The first priority for funding of CCD projects was given, and rightly so, to providing for the search for viruses (at PSU) and pesticides (also at PSU) - and work at Beltsville. We were lucky enough to get some of the additional, later money from the Honey Board, but getting contracts in place and a payment schedule has taken time. In addition, the survey work and some of our sampling and inspections were conducted under private funds - which allows us to better protect confidentiality, like a doctor/patient or lawyer/client. It seems to be a good decision, because contrary to the comments from Ames Farms, about " the secretive nature of some migratory keepers.. and why would anyone believe... answers concerning their operations, ... the chemical inputs", we have gotten very candid and extensive responses to these questions, including the frequency of use of off-label materials. In fact, that's one of the things that has slowed our ability to analyze the data -- we have more information than we can quickly process, and far longer lists of substances than we ever imagined. We do note that many of our respondents checked a box indicating that we COULD NOT share their answers with state regulatory folks, and some didn't want their information to be shared by anyone, not even the CCD Working group. So, things are not simple. If the contrasting inputs/pressures that we have been receiving mean anything, we must be doing something right. On the one hand, we have beekeepers and associations lobbying us to ADD their state in case agricultural disaster funds are released, while at the same time, we have beekeepers and states lobbying us to DELIST their state because we may be adversely affected pollination rentals and sales of bees and queens. And some of these folks are very vocal and passionate. We do our best to call things as based on the data that we have at hand. We also are trying to be careful to avoid setting off unwarranted panics, such as boycotting specific beekeepers or states. Jerry ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************