2008 Cyber Guide to Bees and Honeybees, Beekeeping, Apiaries, Africanized Honey Bees - USDA Government Research, Parasites, Mites, Pathogens, Threats to Pollination, Food Supply (CD-ROM)

This up-to-date electronic book on CD-ROM has comprehensive coverage of USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) research, publications and reports on every aspect of bees and honeybees, beekeeping, apiaries, Africanized honey bees (known as "killer" bees), and colony collapse disorder. It includes extensive material on CCD and known diseases such as foulbrood; chalkbrood; nosema disease; parasitic mites, tracheal mite, varroa destructor, and more. There is material from the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, the Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Laboratory in Louisiana, and the Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. There is material on the role of bees in the pollination of agricultural crops and the production of honey and beeswax, morphometrics, scanning electron microscope atlas, natural history of the queen, workers, and drone, and genome research. This extraordinary, encyclopedic collection contains more than 19,000 pages reproduced in Adobe Acrobat PDF files. Colony Collapse Disorder threatens not only pollination and honey production but, much more, this crisis threatens to wipe out production of crops dependent on bees for pollination. Pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables. If research cannot solve CCD, beekeepers will be unable to meet demand for almonds and other crops. CCD symptoms include the rapid loss of a bee colony's population with very few bees found near colonies, the laying queen present with few remaining attendant bees, and honey and pollen not consumed by invaders.