>Problem is, nobody seems to have a couple hundred colonies that they want
>to just leave the hell alone.

The largest "leave alone' experiment is was involved with involved over 2000
hives in Texas. When all were dead but less than a 100 the beekeeper started
trying to save the rest.

Bob, 
I am sure you understood what I meant. I meant: not truck them around the country exposing them to the stress and difficulty of commercial beekeeping. I did not mean set them in the woods to watch them die. In fact, I personally would do everything I could to control the mites, and maintain the colonies in optimum health. The whole point of what I was saying was there has to be a clear understanding of what optimum health is and what exactly causes this to deteriorate.

The point I am trying (trying) to make is that there are conditions that are ideal for bee health. And, there are conditions that basically wreck bee health. The problem, of course, is that where bees would be the most healthy -- might not earn the beekeeper the most money. In other words, if I kept bees in an environment that was far from agricultural and had a pretty wide variety of quality bee forage, I would earn nothing from pollination and might not get large crops of honey. 

Whereas, if I trucked my bees to pollinate almonds, then to onions or melons, then to alfalfa, etc. they would likely be exposed to multiple rounds of insecticides, the stress of long distance trucking, being picked up and plunked down over and over, etc. Now, I am not saying that this in itself is what is causing widespread loss. Anyone who has read my writing over the past several years knows that I can recall a time when bees were treated in this manner and they did fine despite the rough treatment.

However, something has changed and until somebody really cracks down on it and determines whether it is possible to have healthy honey bees in this country or not, the question remains open as to *what it* is that's changed. Maybe the pesticide load is just too high for bees. Maybe we need to breed pesticide resistant bees. Maybe the virus load is too high, all of it. But without having good healthy hives to compare to, we are just "comparing one sick dog to another"

By the way, atrazine is most certainly not the only suspect in the cases of brain cancer in Cameron, Missouri

> On April 22, 2009, a new Cameron brain tumor lawsuit was filed in Clinton County Circuit Court in Missouri, on behalf of local residents. According to the complaint, Prime Tanning Corp., of St. Joseph, Missouri, used *chromium* to remove hair from hides between 1983 through early 2009. 

> A prior Cameron Missouri class action lawsuit filed in August 2008 on behalf of residents of the town, alleged that the problems were caused by high levels of *lead and arsenic* found in soil samples taken from the land around the Rockwool Industries plant near the town. 

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