- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Remember the alarm, the anxiety and the agony when news first surfaced about colony collapse disorder (CCD)?
Wikipedia defines CCD as "an abnormal phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a honey bee colony disappear, leaving behind a queen, plenty of food, and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees."
We were going through materials this week for the Celebration of Life and Legacy for UC Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, when we ran across his Oct. 9, 2007 presentation delivered as part of the...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
UC Davis honey bee specialist Eric Mussen fingered a line-up of prime suspects at his “BSI: The Case of the Disappearing Bees” lecture on Oct. 9, part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology's Distinguished Seminar Series.
Mussen identified malnutrition, parasitic mites, infectious microbes and insecticide contamination as among the possible culprits. It's a complex issue, he said, but one thing is certain: “It seems unlikely that we will find a specific, new and different reason for why bees are dying.”
Colony collapse disorder (CCD), a phenomenon where bees mysteriously abandon their hives, is not a new occurrence, said Mussen, the Extension Apiculturist at UC Davis since...