shocking 2-year study links colony collapse disorder with pesticide

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Pesticides seems to have support as one factor of many. Bug Girl has a good summary.

As I said before, there are multiple factors for honey bee decline. I mean, think of all the issues every other domesticated animal has, and honey bees have an equivalent.

They have viral and bacteria caused diseases (e.g. foulbrood, APV, CPV, etc).
They have parasites (e.g. varoa mite).
They have pests (e.g. small hive beetle).
They have issues with genetic diversity (due to inbreeding queens).
They have mortality from transport stress (i.e. to and from almond plantations in California).
And now we know they are being poisoned by certain pesticides.

The difference between honey bees and other domesticated animals is that, due to similar size and physiology, we understand vertebrate domestics much better. Despite all the research done since Carl von Frisch's seminal work on the honey bee dance language in the early 20th century, we still understand honey bees quite poorly. What we are seeing is, honey bees have become essential to industrial agriculture of pretty much all flowering plant crops (aside from wind pollinated grasses), and our understanding has not caught up. So we are suddenly beset from all sides with these wide scale problems, the equivalents of problems livestock herders have been addressing for centuries.

As soon as people start thinking of honey bees as domesticated livestock (albeit with a social temperment strange to usE), as more like cows, or pigs, or chickens, these problems don't seem so bizarre and mysterious. Everyone knows that cattle get sick and start acting weird. When that happens, we don't throw up our hands and blame cell phones. It's the same thing.

tl;dr: Ranting about honey bee misconceptions not aimed at anyone here. They're little six legged social chickens.

Right, but this particular study was aimed at answering the question of why there has been an uptick of colony collapse disorder, which has been much more poorly understood than simply the decline in honeybees. Feral honeybees in Oregon have declined since the 1980's due to disease, but that's different.

To speak with the experts, honey bees have been having these decline problems since at least the 1960s. In terms of the disorder, several viruses were linked to collapsing colonies in a PLoS study two years ago. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2950847). Not to mention that the disorder itself is poorly characterized, if it is indeed a single-cause linked disorder and not the combination of many factors leading to bees being unable to find their way home (some hives suffering more than others).

Edit: it would be cool if it /was/ just neonicotinoids, because that's the sort of issue which is more easily fixed.

I think we may be having  two different conversations. Nobody's claiming that CCD is just neonicotinoids. It is well-known that CCD has multiple factors. This study, as I said, is aimed at understanding a specific spike in CCD, not at explaining the entire disorder.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Relax guys.

Last September Monsanto bought Beelogics. Beelogics' primary goal is, "to control the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) infection crises," so I'm sure everything is going to be okay.

Yes, because Monsanto would never consider doing anything like ensuring that their products are needed to pollenize plants after all the bees die or anything.

Oh, Monsanto.