Stateline Beekeepers Association

This morning the NPR program Living on Earth ran an interview with Jerry Hayes, Chief of the Apiary Section at Florida's Department of Agriculture. He has the most plausible (yet) explanation for CCD:

"...there is a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, of which, ah, an active ingredient called imidacloprid has been banned in some countries in Europe because of its association with damaging, ah, pollinators. It has a tendency to, at least in the European data, to have the bees forget how to get home. And so this is one of the components that we're seeing here. And these neonicotinoids and imidacloprid is used pervasively in agriculture in the U.S."

He also says that this chemical, which can get into the nectar, affects the bee immune system and makes them susceptible to pathogens they normally live with and are unaffected by.

Read the full transcript, or listen to the interview.