Professor-students-identify-bacterium-that-may-kill-honey-bees
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I thought CCD had largely disappeared
I had not heard that but found this which supports you observation. I made the mistake of thinking “winterkill” and “CCD” were the same thing. Apparently not. Although CCD is on the decline, winterkill (the subject of the paper) is, apparently, still high.
Maybe connected?? [rattles There is a video by this chap somewhere and the frames he is pulling out are empty of stores with bees heads down.
Thanks for the link.
Serratia marcescens is ubiquitous in moist environments. The existence of a colourless variant is interesting.
It isn’t made clear in the text but the orange red culture on one side of the agar plate is almost certainly the usually encountered strain of Serratia marcescens. The coloured bacteria is responsible for some nasty human infections, particularly some hospital acquired infections.
Hmmm, starvation is a terrible thing… 
Shame if you have to blame a bacterial infection when it was actually likely something preventable. I can see that the bacteria may be significant, but if you control varroa, they are not. Also, if you don’t over-harvest and you are willing to feed when needed, starvation can seem like a real sin in a managed hive.
Indeed
People are finding all sorts of things that live with bees. Bees actually live with a lot of them quite happily.
Easy to blame something other than beekeeping practice
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