1500 to 30,000 is typical of bee swarms.: http://entomology.unl.edu/beekpg/beeswarm.htm

And two additional links with information on CCD: http://www.entm.purdue.edu/Entomolog...h/bee/ccd.html
and the "disappearing disease": http://www.orsba.org/htdocs/download/Dtew.htm

As soon as one of father in law's 3 hives swarms, youngest son & I become beekeepers.
Cade is more interested than me but I feel the need to do something about this problem.

Perhaps more of us should get involved?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Fortunately, the honey bee was selected for genome mapping earlier, which may prove invaluable in solving the current problem:

Not that I trust television to much, but just as an additional bit of information, there was a segment on Japanese TV this morning saying that the same phenomenon has been observed in Kyoto as well. And what it said was that normally bees gravitate toward yellow lights, but that the honeybees were attracted to the green lights. I don't know if this has any significance at all, but it's an observation nevertheless.

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As above, so below

Bee-keepers need to replace the yellow lights on their hives with green ones?

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

Well perhaps, but the point really is, why do the honeybees go for green lights? They're not supposed to, apparently.

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As above, so below

Maybe some secret government organization is abducting the bees and preparing to use them to spread an alien lifeform by pollinating corn crops?


Perhaps not. ^_~

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"We're being shouted at by idiots everywhere we turn!" -Richard Metzger
Homer:He thinks he has all the money in the world. But theres one thing he can't buy with his money.
Marge:Whats that?
Homer:..........a dinosaur.

Their not disappearing, they are just getting sneaky, and hiding so they can pounce...
bees force evacuation of fundraiser

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I wonder, what kind of smoke calms bees?

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

Ooh, yeah! all right!
Were jammin:
I wanna jam it wid you.
Were jammin, jammin,
And I hope you like jammin, too.

Aint no rules, aint no vow, we can do it anyhow:
Ini will see you through,
cos everyday we pay the price with a little sacrifice,
Jammin till the jam is through.

Were jammin -
To think that jammin was a thing of the past;
Were jammin,
And I hope this jam is gonna last.

-Bob Marley

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

All I know is, cigar smoke doesn't calm bees...

...and there's no disappearing bee reports coming from Jamaica or Amersterdam

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

pot?

Er, yeah, that was the joke.

Gives new meaning to the term "honeypot".

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

They were just on vacation in sunny Portugal:

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070526/K052606AU.html

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"It's turtles all the way down."

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

An interesting article, but maybe a little too far the opposite direction from "it is the end of the world". I personally think something troubling is still going on.

The June 18, 2007 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (a publication not known for sensationalism, but unfortunately only available to subscribers), had an interesting article about colony collapse. To date, researchers have only identified things that are not the cause.

Just last week, the USDA released an action plan.

My own observations around my yard and around Ohio are that numbers of both honeybees and bumblebees are down a lot. Last year, when our garden was in bloom, the place was crawling with bees, this year, hardly a one. Our moderate drought might be part of it, but IMHO, doesn't completely explain the noticable drop.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

I live in the Pacific Northwest where we have lots of trees. Last week a swarm of wild honeybees settled down for the night in a tree in our back yard. They formed a ball about 18" in diameter and spent the night. Late the next morning they took off in search of a new home. They may find it very difficult to find a suitable home as most of the hollow snags and hollow cedars have been removed for safety. Maybe some organization should start establishing homes for wild honeybees like they do for woodducks.

This theory has been offered. Hope it's correct as to cause and ease of remedy.

Asian Parasite Killing Western Bees - Scientist By by Julia Hayley

Very interesting ggchuck, I hope it is that simple.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)