Bee puzzles

Bees have many natural enemies. It's not just bears that take a shine to the honey and/or the immature insects. There are also yeasts and parasitic insects that threaten to rob the colonies of the rewards of their hard labour. Researchers recently found that one parasite, the small hive beetle, even uses the bee's alarm pheromone as a signpost to congregate on stressed hives. With this and the inevitable problems of the cold season, beekeepers are used to observing some losses after each winter. This spring, however, many bee keepers across North America have reported many losses, often with no discernable cause. If parasitic mites had conquered the hives, they would leave telltale signs, as is known from previous die-offs. In contrast, what appears to have happened this time, is that hives remained empty for the simple reason that bees flew out and never returned. By April, similar observations have been reported from 27 US states. In some areas, even experienced beekeepers saw three quarters (or more) of their colonies disappear. Scientists were baffled by the phenomenon and coined the phrase Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) to refer to it. In several European countries, spring also arrived to a lower than normal buzzing activity. The German beekeepers' association recorded a loss of 25 per cent of bee colonies nationwide. Even larger losses are reported from Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal and Italy. But what causes the mysterious disappearance of entire bee colonies? So far, researchers are working on the assumption that some external factor may have confused the bees to an extent that they don't find the way back to their hives. This view is supported by the absence of dead bees anywhere near the hives. What this external factor might turn out to be is anyone's guess right now. Current guesses include biological enemies (a number of unidentified fungal parasites or possibly a new species of a midgut parasite Nosema ceranae), and side-effects of modern technology (mobile phones, GM crops, pesticides). Even murmurs of bad practice or compensation fraud have been heard. However, most experts appear to agree that CCD is a real problem that appears to be spreading. But what to do about a problem whose cause remains elusive? Entomologists from several of the countries affected by the problem have pointed to recent funding cuts affecting bee research. For instance, Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, an entomologist at the University of Halle, Germany, …