In These New Times

This video is testimony to the frivolity and light-mindedness which informs the British approach to this issue. It talks of losses rising to 12% of colonies, a figure scarcely above normal winter losses. Then the figure is 20%: still hardly enough to justify the claim that bees might die out. Other sources put the losses at 50-80%: that would be an emergency and fits in with the observation that there are few bees, if any, to be seen. It looks like the British Beekeepers Association are trying to play this all down and, if so, that would be a highly irresponsible response to a crisis which threatens us all. The British government says there is no CCD (formerly, the very  British  “Marie Celeste Syndrome”): what are their sources if not the beekeepers themselves who have already reported CCD .