A few thoughts.

It never occured to me that Andy passed on St. Patrick's Day.  I'm sure he'd
rather have been drinking green beer.  I miss Andy.  He sure knew his bees.
And he sure kept things lively on BEE-L.  Even moreso than they have been in
the past few days (months) with all the discussion of tens of thousands of
hives crashing.

As did not Allen, I had not realized that the discussion had been as
"domineering" as some have claimed.  Indeed there are 66 hits in the
archives since last October, but truthfully I haven't read each one to see
how on or off the mark each may have been.  The take away message I got from
the exchange was that a lot of hives are crashing and no one really knows
why.  This is nothing new.

I was reminded of Andy's treatise on, "S-A-D AND B-A-D BEES".  Andy was not
always the best written contributor on this list, but Andy had more bee
knowledge in the first joint of his pinky finger than many on this list,
this author included.  Andy wrote S-A-D AND B-A-D BEES based on 35 years of
commercial beekeeping experience.  It wasn't backed up with controlled
studies, it was just what Andy knew to be so.  And I wouldn't doubt it.  It
wasn't until I wrote Andy about SAD/BAD bees that we warmed up to each
other.  He was amazed that I actually slogged through what he had written,
but afterwards we always shared a better rapport.

Anyway, SAD/BAD Bees are Stress Accelerated Decline [SAD] and Bee Immune
Deficiency [BAD].  One would think that Bee Immune Deficiency would be BID,
but that was Andy.  "I" was close enough to "A" and BAD worked better than
BID, so Andy wrote about SAD and BAD bees and that's the way it was!

If one reads Andy's treatise (among other places it will be found at
http://honeybeeworld.com/misc/sadandbad.htm ) the main point is that huge
losses are not uncommon in beekeeping.  Hopefully the years of huge losses
can be minimized, but throughout beekeeping history there are years when
tens of thousands of hives crash.  And the losses are unexplained.  There
are villians du jour, "Such as Isle of Wight Disease,
Afro-hereditary Disease, fall, winter, or spring Collapse or Decline, and
Disappearing Disease."  Losses happen.  Currently there are new skeletons in
the closet, including Varroa, chemical build up, systemic pesticides and
more.  But it seems obvious, at least to me, that there are more culprits
being pointed at, but the bottom line is we just don't know what is causing
the hives to crash.

Bob is convinced it's varroa.  All of France is convinced it's imidicloprid.
I love Andy's description of PMS as pure "BS"; that's Bee Science for those
who didn't know Andy.  Again, lots more culprits, more culprits than you can
point a finger at, and still no definitive answers.

SAD Bees.  Stress Accelerated Decline.  Moving bees from hither and thither
to yon, at a time when bees are in the midst of spring build up and in need
of quality protein (which Almond pollen is not), plunking them down in
massive monocultures of Almonds along with tens of thousands of other hives.
Yup, it's gotta be one of those culprits causing the crashes, it couldn't be
that beekeeping practices are simply pushing bees beyond their limits!

I do not discount all the popular culprits, but neither can I point a finger
at a particular villian and say beyond a shadow of a doubt that is where our
problems lie.  In truth, I suspect we all know and deny that a good deal of
the problems lies with we beekeepers.  Are your combs contaminated?  Don't
dismiss the question, are your combs contaminated?  Don't hedge the question
by saying, "Well, I only used Apistan and/or Checkmite a few times and I
always followed label instructions, so I did what I was told at a time when
no one knew any better, so no, my combs aren't contaminated."  See, this Bee
Science is tricky stuff.  If you put a chemical strip in your hive ever,
your combs are contaminated!  That stresses your bees.  Are your combs old?
If you ask, "Well how old is old?", shut up!  Your combs are old and your
bees will do better on fresher comb that hasn't been absorbing nasties that
are out there in the environment (not just in strips).  Are your bees
stressed?  Are your attempts to destress your bees stressing your bees?  Are
there things you can do to destress your bees that will actually destress
your bees?  What might that be?  I really don't know.  Perhaps we should be
running two classes of bees, those that we'll stress as has become common
practice, and those that we'll coddle to make up the tens of thousands of
hives that are crashing.  Or as Andy put it, "quality pasture and the
ability to renew colonies that die for whatever reason."
I don't have the answer.  Andy did not have the answer.  But he did have a
lot of insight to a recurring problem in the beekeeping industry.

So tonight, rather than trading flames amongst out top contributors, all of
whom really do share beers at national conventions, read Andy's SAB/BAD
bees.  It's required reading.  Avoid being MAD beekeepers.

Aaron Morris
(c)Permission is given to copy this document in any form, or to print for
any use.
(w)OPINIONS are not necessarily facts. USE AT OWN RISK!

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