Hello Paul & All,
I love civil discussion on BEE-I (as do most members in my opinion) Thanks! 
I am going to go a bit further than most beekeepers would go in a public 
forum but feel we need to go there for better understanding of an area 
little spoke of except in meeting hallways.

My point in posting both sides is for members to get a feel for the way the 
issue went down in France. Bayer lawyers and researcher/beekeepers. 120,000 
documented dead hives.

 This NRA study also sounds like it was a lab
> study. Lab studies commonly have little or no relevance to actual
> field conditions.

Excellent point! I think pertands to CCD lab research as well. Think about 
what Dr. Caron said at his presentations several attended from BEE-L (and 
myself at the MSBA meeting). Researchers have so far not been able to 
produce CCD symptoms in lab conditions.

>
> I do tend to agree with you that the "bathtub" type varroa
> treatments some beeks use might be capable of bringing on
> CCD like symptoms

I don't think I ever said the above was the problem but could be in a small 
number of CCD cases.

Unlike most likely 95% of the list I know what these treatments consist of 
(as does Randy Oliver in my opinion). Most of these are made from chemicals 
which were *registered* for use on bees the world over. Only now perhaps 
applied in gels or patties but still chemicals which use and their 
contamination of wax (PPM) is well documented. Some of these concoctions and 
methods of application have came from researchers (off the record) trying to 
help beekeepers. Their illegal use has been going on for decades. Jeff 
Pettis reported at several meetings I attended that a single use of 
fluvalinate had the same contamination as repeated use. The USDA-ARS in my 
opinion looked at but discounted early in the CCD issue that high 
concentrations of fluvalinate or even amatraz caused CCD. Shop towels and 
wooden sticks were used by the USDA-ARS in their research of chemicals for 
varroa.

I am not condoning their use but rather trying to say blaming a cause for 
CCD without *proof* does the industry little good! In my *opinion* the 
USDA-ARS does not believe the current CCD issue is caused by missuse of 
fluvalinate or amatraz by beekeepers (personal conversation)


The two most common will NOT repel bees from robbing. The varroa handbook 
published by Larry Conner (1988) listed all the known chemicals which would 
in some form kill varroa. For the most part beekeepers the world around are 
still trying to use the top five chemicals.

In the fall of last year I observed  hives said to be CCD.( Hundreds of 
hives). I personally could not find a cause for these hives problems using 
all my resources. These hives were dwindling and would not take feed. Those 
which did not die over the winter would not take feed in spring. Around May 
these hives finally came to life and started normal expansion for the 
beekeepers. Robbing for the most part did not happen in both fall and spring 
but these yards of bees seemed not interested in feed. The timing of last 
years CCD in the north is a time little problems (robbing)  happen to 
deadouts in the field.

The not removing feed from feeders and storing in the hives suggested to me 
either a problem with the HFCS or the bees themselves. Experiments with 
removing the untouched feed and replacing with fresh HFCS or succrose did 
not solve the problem.  It was like the bees were disorientated or had a 
honey stomach ache.

When in fall a strong colony will not touch syrup when the weather is warm, 
nothing blooming for the bees to work and plenty of room to store in comb 
the problem suggests a problem with the bees themselves.

Fresh pollen was in short supply except for pesticide treated seed corn. The 
bees were packing in large amount of the corn pollen (like they do when 
other pollen is not available).
We checked the empty seed bags labels for several areas (where possible) and 
all the label said was "pesticide treated seed" and the chemical was not 
listed.

> (such as the miticides used to control
> varroa).

Jeff Pettis has been asked many times this question at national bee meetings 
i have attended. Jeff said many times the only time they have found huge 
amounts of other than normal amounts of a registered for bee chemical 
(fluvalinate or amatraz) has been with off label use of the choumaphos 
product which would only be used by an idiot as the product is too low a 
conocentration to effect control when used on a strip and when sprayed in a 
hive kills bees and puts around 38 ppb of the product in wax. Jeff Pettis 
has spoken on the subject in many of his presentations on the subject. One 
such case happened in Florida in a case the USDA-ARS looked at and is the 
only case I am aware of. The beekeeper which killed his bees and later had 
to replace all his comb kind of helped the industry as word spread fast that 
using the liquid choumaphos product would not work!

chemicals in the honey / pollen of CCD affective hives, where
> robbing insects are also absent, but parts per MILLION quantities
> of one or more varroa miticides then we could say: "Wow that's
> probably the chemical that's stopping the robbing and may have
> also caused the CCD".

David Hackenberg ( personal conversation) and myself believe chemicals 
caused many of the last fall die offs ( and the blackened tracheal and blown 
out tubules  or bee kidneys are the result). I do not believe these bees 
died from off label use of chemicals which have been used for decades around 
the world to control varroa.  Jeff pettis and others would have quickly 
spotted if was so. We suspect the new chemicals released since 2003 in the 
U.S..
 When seasrching for a CCD answer you have to ask yourself "Whats different 
today" and one answer would be the new nicotine based pesticides. True they 
are sold in seventy countries and also true as many have posted on BEE-L 
actual CCD symptom hives are only a small part of claimed CCD deadouts but 
what about in the future.


> I have a hard time imagining how any "natural" chemical
> produced in a CCD affected hive (e.g. a chemical produced
> by an active fungus in the CCD hive) could stop the robbing,

Me to!

 I always felt the fungus as a cause for CCD was a stretch but led the list 
for causes for awhile.

 Even the use of OA led the race for causes for awhile but many of us could 
not make the connection. OA use is common worldwide ( although not 
registered for use in the U.S. as OA is in Canada but for the most part 
little interest in getting registered if *money* is involved as the chances 
of getting caught using OA on a hive is very very small).

bob 


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