Reports from California

* Max Eggman, of Terra Bella, former president of the California State
Beekeepers Association, "I lost 835 hives out of 1,000."

* Tom Presley closed his 20-year-old Gilroy apiaries and moved to
Georgia after losing a $200,000 investment.

* "I'm afraid to even count my hives," said Lynne Bottazzo, who combs
"better-than-organic" honey from hives in Hollister and Mount Madonna.
"I'm down to an eighth of what I had."

* Charlie Baker, who keeps bees in Los Banos, lost half his 1,000
hives along with $50,000.

* While he said he hadn't heard of any hives suffering from colony
collapse disorder in the north state, it has affected beekeepers in
Southern California, said Pat Stayer, owner of Stayer's Quality Queens
in Palo Cedro. "It's something new that hit the bees this spring and
hit them big time," he said.

* "Something peculiar is happening," said Eric Mussen, an apiculturist
at the University of California at Davis' Department of Entomology,
who addressed the Marin County Beekeepers Association in San Anselmo.
"Your colony normally has a lot of bees. After a relatively short
period of time, you open the box, and there's practically nothing. The
bees are gone."

-- 
pb

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************