If that were the case, established feral populations would also be
affected. However, in the year that "CCD" was coined - 2006, Oregon
students researching feral colonies noticed a marked increase in colony
numbers while commercial beekeepers were losing their hats in their
apiaries.

The problem lies squarely with the beekeepers themselves. By treating
symptoms rather than getting to the root, beekeepers have exacerbated
the problems of pests and disease in hives, and by maintaining unnatural
but sadly ubiquitous cell size the bees are less able to keep up with
the pests that affect them as well as deal with the resulting diseases.
Compound this with migratory pollinators and the issues they face in
stressing the hive, as well as feeding corn syrup which, along with the
commonly applied formic acid, actually destroys the microbes necessary
to ferment the pollen into digestible food for the bees, and finally the
practice of artificial insemination introducing narrow genetics and weak
lines into apiaries, and you have disaster. The straw fell in 2006. Not
sure what was the trigger - but bees are abandoning commercial hives at
a rate of 1 out of 3. They're moving out into the country or joining up
with neighboring hives that have not suffered as much.

However, organic beekeepers are not suffering quite so drastically, and
better - no-treatments beekeepers. I practice no-treatments, natural
cell beekeeping and my bees are happy. I know beekeepers with hundreds
of hive in CCD "hot" areas who are also not affected. We allow the bees
to naturally size their cells and we don't pollute with pesticides. Our
smaller celled and healthier bees take care of the pest problems just
fine - I've yet to see a mite in my hives, or even SHB or wax moths.
They'll go in there but a healthy hive under little stress will get rid
of them as quickly. We have an interesting way of dealing with disease
too - we let the hive die. Why coddle weak genetics and reward them for
being weak? That's what artificial beekeepers do. They see a weak hive
and suddenly they're pouring treatments in it left and right. But... you
want the weak to self-cull so that the strong can take their place -
survival of the fittest. I know a beekeeper that lost several hives by a
nosema strain introduced from a neighboring artificial apiary. Within
this season she's replaced those hives from her own strong stock into
the same equipment with no ill effect. Her weak was culled and the
strong rewarded by multiplication. I personally don't touch bees unless
they're proven survivors of feral stock. One of my hives even survived a
pesticide treatment! They're gentle bees - I work them in short-sleeves
and no gloves.

So, don't believe everything you read about this "CCD". It's rubbish.
It's just another way of generating a cash-flow from our taxes as
researchers are padding their careers looking thru a microscope at bee
innards, while they conveniently ignore the root of the problem. CCD has
not been defined and the cause is unknown - and mostly because they
don't want to know the cause. Bayer certainly doesn't want anyone to
know the cause - they're raking it in with their treatments - tho
they're losing out in France and Germany. Bee breeders are making a
killing too, replacing those absconded hives. Researchers have yet more
job security, looking at the trees while ignoring the forest. And the
media is sucking it all up and spewing it out on the ignorant.

Any effect that pollution and GMO's have is incidental - a minor and
non-catastrophic contribution. Responsibility for the problem is in the
hands of the keepers themselves.

In the meantime, as artificial beekeepers throw up their hands and exit
the industry - something I've seen - natural beekeepers like myself will
fill their shoes and Bayer will have to find other fools to sell their
garbage too.