Yet another study points to pesticides as cause of bee death disorder

boing
27

Damn! I thought the onus was on you and then you sent it back to me!

You’ve failed to elaborate, in any form, upon your claim that “Apiary operators of all sizes already refuse to service areas with high CCD incidence”. Since you clearly don’t know anything about beekeeping, let me help you along a bit.

  1. CCD, if such a thing actually exists, is not location specific (Unless one lives next to Dave Hackenberg… hahahaha)

  2. State-level information isn’t universally possible to get on specific bee issues such as “CCD”, much less locale-specific information.

  3. Beekeepers may choose to avoid a particular location, for a variety of reasons, such as spraying, bears, people, or even competition… But consulting local “CCD MAPS”, if such a thing even exists, is pretty far down the list. More likely, they’re following the money, whether that be in honey-forage, or in pollination fees.

I would go so far as to suggest that the greatest single cause of CCD is non-beekeepers who have googled their way into a facade of expertise, misinterpreted studies, and then make grandiose claims about CCD, thus perpetuating a cycle of misinformation.

But, let us not forget that burdensome onus that you have placed upon me. Unfortunately, I must abstain from your challenge on the grounds that the CCD/bee decline consensus narrative is too dense to deconstruct in an online comment - That’s an exercise to be left to the observer, should it interest them. I’ll leave you with a few bread crumbs.

  1. What is the difference between “hive collapse” and “colony collapse disorder”

  2. What is the difference between a consistent yearly loss, a decline, and what role does replenishment play?

  3. How much of what we know about CCD is impressions generated by new beekeepers or google warriors trumpeting what they think is going on versus what is actually known by credible bodies? How is that credibility established?

Lastly, I must refer you to the comments of szielins. He suffers fools far more gladly than I, and should you so choose to take on this mission, you may even learn something from him.

I apologize for the tardy reply - I was out “saving the bees” during the afternoon.