this is true. Specially with almond crops in california.

Yes, there is a much longer discussion of the topic in the bees tribe.

Some people are concerned that BT pollen from genetically modified crops may be playing a role in the problem.

I live in Northern Ohio and the local bee-keepers are really worried. So are the farmers, it was even in the paper. It mentioned that this has happened before, but they never found the reason....is it one of nature's great mysteries or is it the chemicals man kind is plying to the earth?

Could it be the weather?


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Weather turn a blow to already-endangered busy bees
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Michael Sangiacomo
Plain Dealer Reporter
The sudden return of winter has strained already overburdened Ohio honeybees and could contribute to a death rate of 40 to 70 percent, one of the state's top bee experts warned.
"Bees just can't get a break," said James Tew, a specialist at Ohio State University's Honeybee Laboratory in Wooster. "We were already facing a large bee kill because of a lack of stored food and now this lengthy cold snap is endangering the rest of the hives. If the temperatures dip into the teens, the die-off will be even worse."
Medina's Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine, said the bolt of bad weather, including subfreezing temperatures, snow and hail was like a stick in the eye. Bees used the record-breaking warm spell to lay eggs, gather food for their young and make wax. But once the cold hit, the bees were unable to leave the hive and gather food for their hungry offspring and themselves.
"The bees were so focused on gathering food for their young and making wax that you could have walked naked into a hive and not been stung," Flottum said. "The queen was laying eggs, it was exciting and then - boom, a kick in the face."
Tew said the bees' fortunes depend on whether the blossoms can withstand the cold snap and be there when temperatures go up again. Then the remaining bees can get food they need to feed their young and, in the process, pollinate the trees.
If the blossoms are gone, the young bees will die and fewer bees will pollinate the early blooming cherry, plum and fruit trees that blossomed last week. That means less fruit or shrunken and deformed fruit.
Tew worries about losing the estimated 4,000 backyard beekeepers whose bees provide much of the fruit and vegetable pollination since the collapse of the feral bee population in the early 1990s.
The state's apple crop should not be affected since apple trees bloom later, in early May. Beekeepers from the southern United States are expected to arrive in Ohio in a few weeks to rent out their hives to local apple orchards.
Tew said the last year had been hard on bees, resulting in insufficient food storage. When beekeepers examined their hives the past few weeks they found whole colonies had starved to death over the winter.
Beekeepers in the southern United States were among the hardest hit by the so-called "colony collapse," which has baffled scientists and agricultural experts across the country. Across the nation, beekeepers found more than a quarter-million hives empty in March. The bees and their queen flew off and never returned in the American South, the Southeast and the West. On the West Coast, from 30 percent to 60 percent of the honeybees deserted their hives and, in Texas, up to 70 percent.
Enough of their hives are expected to recover for northern apple season. And Ohio was more fortunate. "We've had scattered reports of colony collapse in Ohio, but not as many as we feared," Tew said. "Now, we're more concerned about the weather."

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msangiacomo@plaind.com, 216-999-4890

Colon Collapse Syndrome is what they're calling it. The two theories that are most popular is that it is caused either by pesticides (stop spraying your gardens people, and write to your state representatives to outlaw spraying the food supply!), or possibly by a virus (that the bees were formerly able to fight off but are now susceptible to) due to weakened immune systems from varroa mite infestations.
To lose the honey bees would be to seal the coffin of humanity, essentially. Einstein predicted that if the honey bees were wiped out, we'd have four years to live as a species.
Let's hope they figure out a solution soon.

Some promising new research links their disappearance to electromagnetic interference with their natural navigation systems. This has a lot of supporting research in other species such as cetoids and past indications of bees acting differently around high energy electrical equipment.

The spread of cell phones and wireless networks could be resulting in another kind of network bug, the bee that is intercepting the signal and going who knows where because of what we are typing in over the internet....

Bees die if they don't get back to a hive and sources of food and water, so in a short time confusion alone can wipe out the colony.

There does not seem to be any corresponding increase in wild hives so that theory seems incorrect for this condition.

Considering that the swedish and finnish studies are showing that the research into negative effects of wireless equipment on human brain cells is in fact valid, despite it having been shot down in the us, big surprise there, that too is supporting evidence of electromagnetic energy being the cause of colony collapse.

A mite infestation imported from NZ has wiped out honey bees on Oahu and it appears to be a matter of time before it infests the rest of Hawaii. The mite infests the hive and feeds on bees in all stages of development. What import/ export protocals? Another aspect to consider is that the honey bee was imported to Oahu in the 1880's by ranchers to increase the yield of Kiawe bean (African mesquite?) for the cattle to eat. The native Yellow face bee of Hawaii is unaffected because it is hiveless like the carpenter bee. The yellow face only pollenates in areas with a diversity of native species present which accounts for little these days. I don't mean to sound like a fatalist or anything, but if the honey bee goes extinct, we're fcuked.