Could Frankencrops be killing the bees?
The South is among the regions of the United States hit hard by colony collapse disorder, in which large numbers of honeybees are dying off and disappearing, never to be seen again. The United States in recent months has lost about a quarter of its colonies, five times the typical winter losses. The problem, which has also been documented in a number of European nations and Brazil, has enormous implications for food security and the economy, as bees pollinate more than 90 crops, including apples, soybeans, citrus fruit, peaches, blueberries and melons. Some have blamed pesticides for poisoning the bees. Others have suggested that cell phone radiation could be disrupting the creatures’ navigating systems. Yet others have pointed to a fungus. But as Matt Hutaff notes in an article in The Simon, if pesticides or cell phones were the culprit, we would expect that the bee deaths would be a global phenomenon and would have happened years ago. CCD, on the other hand, was observed in recently
