On 2nd of October 2009, the Beekeeping Farm "Sadecki Bartnik" organized a press conference relating to the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) visible in recent years.

This phenomenon affects bees from all around the world and became one of the most intensively researched subject by scientists and laboratory teams, including the one from "Sadecki Bartnik". It is estimated that two years ago, for instance, in Canada almost 40% of bees died. Facing such a dramatic decrease in number of bee colonies, farmers from Japan and China increasingly resort to manual pollination of strawberries, melons and even cherry trees.

Professor Ryszard Czarnecki  from Colllegium Medicum of Jagiellonian University said that although there were many suspected culprits for CCD, from varroa destructor to the cold, more and more popular had become the opinion that the real danger was the widely used system for protection of cultivated plants.  

For example, grains of beetroot in Poland or corn in the USA are seasoned for protection with substances containing neonikotynoid, traces of which remain in a plant and its fruit throughout the whole vegetative period. It also survives in soil for even two to three years, from where it is absorbed by plants and finally gets to pollen. What is worse, the existence of this harmful substance was also detected in the sugar used for feeding bees in winter.

According to prof. Czarnecki, the breakthrough in this discovery was the result of CCD in Germany. It turned out that because the grains were seasoned on a windy day the substance was spread to the nearest apiaries and as a result  almost 12 thousand bee families were killed instantly
 

Many countries took actions to save bees by retracting or suspending application of some substances used for seasoning. Such solution has been also considered in Poland. In the meantime, beekeepers hope that thanks to the numerous researches that are being carried out and Polish legislative power the phenomenon of CCD will be prevented.