Post Box 98
Santa Rosa, CA 95402-0098
Post Box 98 Santa Rosa, CA 95402-0098 |
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Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been making the rounds in the news lately. Notable characteristics of CCD are a presence of honey and pollen within the failed hive, and a stark lack of quantities of dead bees in the immediate vicinity, where one might normally expect a fair number of dead bees, and robbing to have occurred, or if the bees had absconded (which would explain a lack of carcasses), they should have raided their food stores, leaving an empty hive.
Research Investigators haven't yet pinpointed the cause of CCD, but tentatively, they believe it is contagious. If you suspect a colony has suffered from CCD, the recommendation is to NOT USE THE BEE STORES IN OTHER COLONIES, and to flame scorch your equipment before re-use. By extension, if you have a particularly weak colony, you may want to rethink whether you combine it with another stronger colony, since you risk spreading the problem to your healthy one. Combining two weak colonies poses the same risks of spreading the disorder, but if in fact you just have dwindling numbers because of hardship on the bees (which would be identifyable by low honey stores and/or poor or no brood), these risks may be justifyable on the basis that you may otherwise loose both colonies.
If you have lost any colonies this year, please take a few moments to participate in the National Bee Loss Survey. Bee Alert is one of the organizations which is part of the CCD Working group, so you can be sure this data is not being idly collected.
Other resources:
Penn State Podcast with links to other resources.
Colony Collapse Working Group. From this page, you can download the CCD Preliminary Report.
Information about other bee diseases and disorders will be published here as the opportinity permits.
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