Hello Bill & All,
Bill said:
there are still some commercial operations here on the East Coast
> that hold that pesticides are the cause of CCD which seems to be in
> conflict
> with what I read on this list.

To many of us our pesticide losses today are at least double what we saw
last decade and we do not really know what sub lethal effects are happening.


I agree lumping pesticides kills in with CCD is problematic but its almost
impossible for those looking at claimed CCD to eliminate pesticides as PART
of the issue.

*if* the hives with problems were just pulled from an field with plants
treated with pesticides then what effect did their possible expose  have on 
their
demise?

With over 2 million hives in the U.S. our so far taken samples are not even
a statistic!

In the Dakotas ( an area basically free in summer of pesticide use) hives
which are shipped to California and die a couple weeks later you can in my
opinion push pesticides as the cause farther down the list of possible
causes.

HOWEVER:
When looking back at these Dakota hives you see these hives ( with problems)
many times have been in around 4-5 pollinations involving pesticides &
fungicides before dropped in the Dakotas.
.
ONE POSSIBLE HYPOTHESIS;
contaminated pollen ( non lethal amounts) has been collected while in these
pollinations AND over the summer the bees being fed the pollen suffer.
Pollen patty feeding ( before almonds and early spring)  is over, nectar is
being collected and stored pollen is being used. Kind of like the lady which
gave her husband a little bit of antifreeze each day and when he died the
antifreeze was hard to detect.

Each of the four possible causes for bee die-off by the CCD working group 
has
basis in science.

New hypothesis:
One new hypothesis today is weather and humidify. I raised this issue the
first time I looked at the CCD survey. Georgia has had little CCD issues (
from my checking) but yet Florida has had higher. Texas has had little as
compared to California. Of course weather patterns are always changing but
as the time goes on patterns slowly form. One reason we need to keep
documenting losses and take samples.

Each has the right to their opinions and most have some degree of merit but
the issue is so complicated that all looking into the die off feel like
giving up at times it seems.

Today's bees in my opinion are the most fragile that I have ever worked 
with.
Queen life is shorter than I have ever seen.

bob

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