"Survey: 36% of bee hives lost in U.S."
"A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1% of the nation's commercially managed hives lost since last year.
Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32%.
As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group....
bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture."For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," he said. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."
.... About 29% of the deaths were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn't...."
"In the article "Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae" (Nature, Vol 399, No 6733, p 214, May 1999), evidence is presented that proves genetically altered plants are harmful to beneficial insect species. Yet this is never mentioned in the media discussions of what happened to the bees.
