[bee world] colony collapse disorder

This blog doesn’t usually cut and paste vast tracts of an MSM story but this is an exception:

Colony Collapse Disorder is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the United States. Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some commercial beekeepers have reported losing more than 50 per cent of their bees. A colony can have roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.

The country's bee population had already been shocked in recent years by a tiny, parasitic bug called the varroa mite, which has destroyed more than half of some beekeepers' hives and devastated most wild honeybee populations. Among the clues being assembled by researchers:

- Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.

- From the outside, a stricken colony may appear normal, with bees leaving and entering. But when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find few mature bees taking care of the younger, developing bees.

- Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive's honey. That's not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.