"Overall, elevated expression of pesticide response genes was not observed."
This little sentance is all I would have needed to read. You see, I've been a firm believer that CCD was simply a pesticide issue for years now and no one was caring because it was likely happening on crops that don't use honey bee pollination, however the bees were still using the crop for food or water anyhow. When you have a pesticide like neonicotinoides out on the market that stay active for 9 months inside the plant, that sounds strong enough to wipe out a few hives to me.
So what that one sentance means is, insecticides are a separate problem and CCD has some other elusive cause. Those genes should have been active if pesticides were present. Seriously, you'd think a company like Bayer would be propagandizing the hell out of that study! Do they like being the bad guys?
Going back to the study linking viruses and fungi to CCD I still have trouble understanding the findings in that lower chart. And my concerns still stand. Without knowing more it really does seem like something got to their samples and the virus fungi invasion is a result. Maybe they weren't feeding their samples and thats why so many of their control bees died? How great would it be if online studies included videos detailing their work? I need to start YouTube for scientific studies or something.
I would like to thank Alex Wild for setting the me straight. His blog at Myrmecos.net is where I found the study explaining the pesticide thing.