Pennsylvania researchers summarize progress on Colony Collapse Disorder in bees

Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has certainly had its fifteen minutes of fame over the past two years. A serious problem for commercial beekeepers, this new threat to managed honey bees has puzzled researchers. For an up-to-date report from the leading U.S. research team, check out the new article in Scientific American magazine. According to researchers, pesticides, often singled out as a likely culprit in bee die-offs, have not been ruled out as a factor in colony deaths, but less likely as a prime cause. New molecular techniques seem to point to a recently discovered virus as the principal suspect.