[Pollinator] CCD in the NYT

[David Inouye]

The New York Times
July 17, 2007

Bees Dying: Is It a Crisis or a Phase?

By 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/andrew_c_revkin/index.html?inline=nyt-per>ANDREW 
C. REVKIN

Over the last year, large die-offs of commercial 
honeybee colonies, from unknown causes, have 
raised concern that an agricultural crisis is at 
hand. Now, however, some experts on insect 
biology and bee rearing are questioning how 
unusual the die-offs are, saying commercial 
beekeeping has long had a pattern of die-offs, 
and without better monitoring, there is not 
enough information to know if anything new or calamitous is happening.

If the problem is worse than before, they say, it 
may be because more bee colonies are being housed 
and trucked by fewer beekeepers, raising the 
chances of infestations or infections spreading.

The official word, endorsed by many scientists 
and people in beekeeping businesses, is that a 
newly named syndrome, called 
<http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/ColonyCollapseDisorder.html>colony 
collapse disorder,or CCD, is at work and poses a 
significant threat to American fruit, nut and vegetable crops.

An 
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2007/070713.htm>action 
plan released Friday by the Department of 
Agriculture used the phrase “CCD crisis” to 
describe the recent die-offs, even as it said it 
was “uncertain whether CCD is a new phenomenon” 
and described similar die-offs as long ago as 1898.

No one in the field doubts that commercial 
beekeepers in more than 20 states have seen large 
declines in hive populations in the last year ­ 
more than 70 percent in some cases ­ and that 
agriculture is facing problems pollinating some crops.

It is also clear that bees in the Americas, both 
wild native species and honeybees, which were 
imported long ago and are the commercial 
standard, have been hard hit in recent decades by mites and infectious agents.

What some scientists say is missing from the 
debate is historical context. “Every time there 
are these disappearances, the ills of the moment 
tend to be held accountable,” said May Berenbaum, 
who heads the entomology department at the 
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and led a 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_academy_of_sciences/index.html?inline=nyt-org>National 
Academy of Sciences 
<http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11761.html>review of 
the status of North American bees and other 
pollinators that was published last year.

“In the ’60s it was synthetic organic 
insecticides,” Dr. Berenbaum said. “In the ’70s 
it was Africanized bee genes. In the 19th 
century, there is a wonderful report about this 
resulting from a lack of moral fiber. Weak 
character was why they weren’t returning to the hives.”

One thing almost everyone seems to agree on is 
the need for consistent, frequent censuses of the 
country’s bee populations, but money for 
monitoring has not been increased, bee experts said.

Eric Mussen, a bee expert at the 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_california/index.html?inline=nyt-org>University 
of California, Davis, said he did not understand 
the talk of catastrophe, noting that even after 
colonies are lost, beekeepers can quickly replace them.

Michael Burgett, a professor emeritus of 
entomology at 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/oregon_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Oregon 
State University, said the big honeybee losses in 
some regions could simply reflect unremarkable 
spikes above a common level of mortality of more 
than 20 percent in recent decades.

“In the late 1970s we had another scare similar 
to this,” Dr. Burgett said. “They called it 
‘disappearing disease’ at the time. But we never 
found a specific cause for it, we continued to 
improve our bee management programs and ‘disappearing disease’ disappeared.”

<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html>Copyright 
2007 <http://www.nytco.com/>The New York Times Company