Buzz kill.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Colony collapse disorder - Brief article

BEEKEEPERS in at least 24 states reported a huge number of empty honeybee hives last spring. Since honeybees are the hard-working pollinators of many American crops, that is very bad news.

Theories about what might be causing this "colony collapse disorder" have sprung up everywhere, with varying degrees of credibility. The British newspaper The Independent misreported a scientific study and suggested that the radio signals from mobile phones might be responsible. More seriously, the Sierra Club and other environmentalists named another possible culprit: biotech crops.

But the epidemic of bee death was not confined to the biotechnology-friendly United States. Hives collapsed in biotech-free Europe too. The head of the German beekeepers' association reported a 25 percent drop in bee populations in his country. One German beekeeper publicly blamed biotech corn, even though it represents only 0.06...