Colony Collapse Disorder Decimates Lebanon’s Bee Population

Global Scourge Clips Wings of Lebanon's Beekeepers
Crucial links in food chain are dying in record numbers
By Esther Krenz Muller, The Daily Star, 6/3/2008

BEIRUT: Many people think of bees as just another flying pest, but they are essential to modern civilization's ability to feed itself - and they are dying in unsettling numbers.

"Since 2005, Lebanon's estimated 10,000 beekeepers have lost roughly one quarter of their 4 billion bees," Wadih Yazbek, manager of Yazbek Honey Est., told The Daily Star…

Since 2006 baffled researchers have come up with a term for the mysterious phenomenon - Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). In CCD-stricken hives, the entire adult population of worker bees (with the exception of the queen) flies off in search of pollen and mysteriously never returns to the hive. The bees aren't emigrating - they simply cannot find their way home due to disorientation and eventually succumb to exhaustion and cold, according to beekeepers and scientists worldwide...