> many beekeepers don't know what they are doing with mite
> treatments yet after more then a decade. But that would 
> not make for the most interesting news story would it?

Mite problems, even serious ones, would not present the 
symptoms being seen with CCD.

> My strong feeling is that the US bees industry is
> experiencing a bad case of "indigestion" concerning the 
> after affects of moving from ineffectual strips to new mite 
> treatments. 

If this were true, then one would see a less confusing type
of colony losses, one much more familiar to nearly all beekeepers.

> I think if we check the archives, we will find at least three
> reported massive die-offs in the last decade or so in the USA.

With very different overt symptoms.  Compare the 2001/2002 die-off
(thought to be an imidacloprid problem at the time) on Prince Edward 
Island with the situation at hand.  Compare and contrast.

It is apparently easy to sit back and wax philosophical about someone 
else's disaster.  But I am not at all happy about comments that blame
the victims, such as:

> the headlines could be "Beekeepers in Disorder on how to Care for 
> Bees (after EPA approved strips that contaminate comb stop working)"
> or maybe  "Bees Dying by the Hundreds as some Beekeepers stand by 
> Clueless"

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