“During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States,” said Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences in a written statement distributed by the university. “Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses.”
[snip]
In total, honey bee pollination contributes about $55 million to the value of crops in the state. Besides apples, crops that depend at least in part on honey bee pollination include peaches, soybeans, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.
The above from here.
They say it could be pesticides or some organism that is running rampant because of an upsetting of the natural balance.
We humans are the scourge of the earth. We are also a very weird unbalanced species. The following from Harper’s Weekly, to which you can link to check out sources.
Donatella Versace told Hillary Clinton to stop wearing pants.
In Washington state, proponents of same-sex marriage pursued legislation that would annul all connubial unions still barren after three years.
Austrian federal police uncovered a child pornography ring involving 2,360 suspects in more than 77 countries.
a Philadelphia city councilman proposed the adoption of rubber sidewalks.
A study conducted at the University of Chicago found that 14 percent of American doctors thought it was morally acceptable to lie to their patients about treatment options.
A British Muslim high school was under criticism for using textbooks that depicted Jews as apes and Christians as pigs, and predicted that all non-believers would be condemned to hellfire.