Wikipedia says there are CCD observations in Poland and Spain. Europe is much smaller than the US. Before you know it, you will miss something.

Bees means friends

[During] a recent visit by Ukraine's President Yushchenko to Lithuania, he was gifted a set of beekeeping implements by President Adamkus of Lithuania. It turns out that Yushchenko is a keen beekeeper in his private life. President Yushchenko has now in turn gifted President Adamkus three beehives with bees, as thanks for Adamkus' help in helping solve last year's Ukrainian crisis.

This was a highly symbolic act, as in ancient times in Lithuania people who exchanged bees became lifelong friends, with ties as strong as between blood relatives. Bees could not be bought or sold, only exchanged. There was a whole lore of beekeeping practised in ancient times, unique in Europe to Lithuania and related Baltic nations. In fact the Lithuanian name for a special friend, "bičiulis", is derived from the word "bitė" (a "bee").

Here are a few of those Lithuanian beehives, with an independent expalnation:

As we strolled back toward the cottage, the guide further explained to me that the Lithuanian beekeepers centuries ago were members of a kind of brotherhood. Evidence of this is a curious word in everyday use by Lithuanians that links the Lithuanian culture and language with bees and beekeeping. This is the word biciulis, pronounced bitch -ull -iss, with the ull as in "pull". Derived from the two-syllable Lithuanian word for bee, bite (bit-eh), it was originally used among beekeepers. A beekeeper was a bicius (bitch-uss with the uss as in puss). Biciulis is a diminutive and it literally means " dear fellow beekeeper". Beekeepers kept bees as common property and had close relationships among themselves that were almost as close as blood relationships. It is said that there was a strong moral code among them. As in other cultures, the Lithuanians saw the bee as a fiercely moral creature. She stung dishonest people, for example. This carried over to human life. Someone who was adept enough and morally good enough to handle bees, as you were, clearly would make a trustworthy friend. It is said that bees were never bought and sold among biciuliai. Nowadays, Lithuanians commonly use the delightful word biciulis simply to mean "friend" or "pal".

We may also remember the mead drink, the ancient European (and not only) honey wine or beer.

Oh, come on!

BBC News: Scientists discuss GM threat to butterflies (8 November, 1999)

There has been particular concern about the fate of the familiar insect after Cornell University, US, researchers showed how pollen from corn modified to produce its own insecticide could kill monarch larvae if it landed on milkweed plants, the exclusive food of monarch caterpillars.

Since the Cornell study was published in the science journal Nature last May, environmental lobby groups opposed to GM crops have used the monarch butterfly as a focus for their attacks on the biotech industry.

But at a symposium in Chicago which brought together many scientists working in this area, there appeared to be conflicting evidence as to the true state of play.

The meeting was organised by a consortium of biotechnology and pesticide companies in the US, the Agricultural Biotechnology Stewardship Working Group. It had commissioned a number of studies in response to the Cornell work, some of which reported preliminary findings at the symposium.

Unintended consequences my ass.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

So long and thanks for all the pollen?

In 2001, Bt176 varieties were voluntarily withdrawn from the list of approved varieties by the Environmental Protection Agency when it was found to have little or no Bt expression in the ears and was not found to be effective against second generation corn borers. (Current status of Bt Corn Hybrids, 2005)

Upon sporulation, B. thuringiensis forms crystals of proteinaceous insecticidal δ-endotoxins (Cry toxins) which are encoded by cry genes. Cry toxins have specific activities against species of the orders Lepidoptera (Moths and Butterflies), Diptera (Flies and Mosquitoes) and Coleoptera (Beetles). Thus, B. thuringiensis serves as an important reservoir of Cry toxins and cry genes for production of biological insecticides and insect-resistant genetically modified crops.

...

Spores and crystalline insecticidal proteins produced by B. thuringiensis are used as specific insecticides under trade names such as Dipel and Thuricide. Because of their specificity, these pesticides are regarded as environmentally friendly, with little or no effect on humans, wildlife, pollinators, and most other beneficial insects. The Belgian company Plant Genetic Systems was the first company (in 1985) to develop genetically engineered (tobacco) plants with insect tolerance by expressing cry genes from B. thuringiensis.

To determine whether there was an effect, though, would require analysis of the larvae in the hive, since Bt kills larvae (a crystal protein perforates their intestine). A dead colony would then be one whose larvae had all died, and therefore whose adult insects were not replaced.

The striking feature of CCD is that bees die in fields, outside beehives. Adults bees are affected, right at work. Larvae might suffer as well - but by definition, CCD is not a failure of the reproductive chain.  

David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

<snip>

A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. "Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food," said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

You can find the rest of the article here.

Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.

But then again, the causual web could be very complex. Say, global warming may disrupt seasonal rhythm of bees, or enhance parasyte populations. Even if GM would not be the dominant reason most likely, the thinking has to be changed from "Is it disastrous or not?" to "What is the spectrum of possibilities?".

CCD can be a prime wake-up example that people do have a tremendously bad impact (asif the examples of Aral Sea and ozone hole could not be enough). The implicit but comfortable dogma that we can cause nothing globally catastrophic has to be shatered.

If this really is due to pollen from GM crops, 1) how does one prove the connection

Field Biology research requires a large enough statistical universe over a broad range of climatic, weather, soils, moisture, & etc conditions.  This takes 3 to 5 years. If you're lucky.  If a research crop gets a Eatus Muchas pest infestation then you're screwed for that year and the whole data set from that location maybe hosed as you've lost the time series correlation to other sites.  Then you start eliminating and, hopefully, come-up with a systemic constant with a high (97%+) confidence factor.

2) how does one get the GM industry and the governments to acknowledge it?

Forget convincing the GM industry.  They have billions riding on their stuff and they could give a flying fart. Reducing to a previous solution we start screaming at our elected representatives, I guess.  

<rant>

What is maddening is I did a study in 1991/2 comparing open field pollenated corn with commercial seed corn.  Although the initial yield was lower (as much as 60% of the best commercial seed,) the cost/benefit was obvious for the open field corn.  First, the cost of seed was less.  Second, didn't have to purchase any more seed.  Third, the corn, over time, adapted to the specific farm's soil types increasing yield over time.  Fourth, the open pollenated corn was hardier to pests, diseases, fungi -- 'stress.'  (Thus) Fifth, the need for additional inputs (pesticides, herbicides, & etc) was reduced to as little as 25% of previous requirements, depending on the farming practices.

The GM corn is only needed because the stupid f*ckers keep planting the same g*dd*mned cultivar which was bred solely for yield dropping dead when a bird craps on it in a field that has never been rotated to another crop long enough for pests and diseases to die off, predators on those pests are eliminated by the hundred million tons of chemicals dumped on the field, and without another hundred tons of fertilizer the damn things wouldn't grow anyway as the soil minerals were leeched out in 1957 and the last micro-organism attempting to live in the topsoil was killed in 1963.  

(Only my opinion, of course.)

</rant>

Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.

Regarding potentially dangerous problems, say, global warming, the most you can read are excuses to ignore them. In particular, there is not much in the media that you can read about the bee problem. When the media - perhaps fully controlled by narrow minded interests of minimum industrial accountability, I am just guessing - does not provide any reasonably concerned framework to discuss environmental problems, you get to read running-scared punks like me (haha).

The mystery will be solve shortly.

Firstly, there are different levels of "solving". You may find out how the problem arrises, or how it works, but you may have little clue how to solve it with widely acceptable means.

Secondly, this particular mystery might be solved soon, but maybe not soon enough. I am skeptical that we will eventually solve every problem we came accross with our modern headlong enterprising adventure. We are at the stage when we make more problems than we solve.  

The current episode is beyond natural for the bees. They can adopt quickly only by a mass extinction.