Survey finds slower decline of honeybee colonies By GARANCE
BURKE – 14 hours ago FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — The decline of
honeybee colonies has slowed slightly since last fall, but a
mysterious combination of ailments is still decimating the
insect's population, federal researchers say. U.S. Department of
Agriculture researchers found that honeybee colonies declined by
29 percent between September 2008 and early April. That's an
improvement over the last two years, when researchers found that
32 percent and 36 percent of all beekeepers surveyed lost hives.
Domestic honeybee stocks have been waning since 2004 because of
a puzzling illness scientists called colony collapse disorder,
which causes adult bees to inexplicably forsake their broods.
Bees now appear also to be suffering from other ailments. Read
More One thing that we can conclude from the reduced colony
death is that it can’t caused by a pesticide or GMO crop. If it
were, the death rates would be the same or higher. You would
have to assume that the theo