Scientists trying to crack the Colony Collapse Syndrome (CCD) mystery that's killed millions of beehives worldwide, may be onto something, according to Scientific American: The growing consensus among researchers is that multiple factors such as poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides can interact to weaken colonies and make them susceptible to a virus-mediated collapse. In the case of our experiments in greenhouses, the stress of being confined to a relatively small space could have been enough to make colonies succumb to IAPV and die with CCD-like symptoms. More recent results from long-term monitoring have identified other unexpected factors for increased colony loss, including the fungicide chlorothalonil. Research is now focused on understanding how these factors relate to colony collapse....
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Wandering through one of my local gourmet stores on my way to see my mother-in-law, Hilda, I spotted a pint of a Häagen-Dazs flavor I had been hearing about but had never seen. Vanilla Honey Bee is a new Häagen-Dazs flavor that comes complete with a cause (saving the honeybees from Colony Collapse Disorder) and a story (pollinating bees are responsible for way more than honey, as in (by some estimates) 33 percent of what we eat). I quickly came up with a plan to serve three causes with one little pint of ice cream: Taste the new flavor, help save honeybees, and bring my mother-in-law a treat. I bought a pint of the Vanilla Honey Bee and a pint...
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