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the breathing tubes of honeybees has bee
Hi All,
As most of us are aware, the problem of collapsing
honeybee colonies appears to have begun slowly in the U.S. in late
summer and fall of 2006, becoming more rapidly apparent in early
2007, when it was given the name of Colony Collapse Disorder.
The article "Colony Collapse Disorder(CCD) in Canada: Do we have a
problem?" recently placed on naturens highlights many possibilities
for individual hive collapse, but offers little to critically address
the cause(s) of epidemic hive collapse that is currently affecting
beekeeping in the United States (and possibly soon in Canada). In
short, what the article fails to state is that of the stressors and
threats to colony viability that it mentions, all were in existance ,
and stressing and threatening bee colonies, for years before the
advent of CCD.
Indeed what is needed for resolution of the CCD problem is
identification of a change, an indication of something happening on a
widespread basis, either just before, or in conjunction with the
advent of CCD as an epidemic. Something that was not prevalent before.
The article does mention one thing however that is extremely
significant, and that is the fact that the stored honey and pollen
has no appeal, either to the young inhabitants of the collapsed hive
or to the adjacent hives (which would normally raid an unprotected
hive for it's stored honey and pollen). In this anomalous behaviour
is a hint, that possibly the same inhibitor (whatever it is) could be
what is keeping the foraging bees from returning to the hive which
isolation would ultimately result in their death.
While the honey in the collapsed hive, in and of itself, may not
yield a cause, it can, with a little investigation indicate the
direction in which to look for one.
Kent
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