.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} By Lynda Edwards

Male honeybees are normally dutiful providers, serving one queen for life, heading for the fields every day to gather pollen then returning to feed the hive’s baby bees. But now experts say honeybees all over the world are behaving like deadbeat dads, abandoning their hives and disappearing forever.

Last week, Iowa State University hosted a conference of scientists from Germany, Italy, Denmark, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States to discuss this mysterious phenomenon, called “colony collapse disorder.” It may sound like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but the phenomenon poses a threat to the world’s supply of fruits and vegetables. Bee experts often say that every third bite of food humans eat is the result of pollination. Pollination problems would mean lower crop yields of grapes, apples, avocados, blueberries, cucumbers, cherries, strawberries, melons, carrots, citrus, cotton, cranberries, kiwis, plums, pumpkins, squash and sunflowers.

U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee spokesman Kate Cyrul told the Business Record that farmers in 37 states have reported CCD problems. Cyrul said the committee would like to see money for CCD research in the upcoming Farm Bill, but budget cuts pose an obstacle.

“Outbreaks have happened before in the 1980s and 1970s, but this is far more pervasive, to the point where it could become a crisis,” ISU entomology professor Mary Harris said. “There’s a perfect storm theory that bees are now stressed by environmental and disease factors that never existed at the same time in the same places before.”

The topic may be spooky, but conference attendees seemed gripped by the heady thrill of investigators on the trail of a major mystery. The same excitement ran through conversations that one might hear on a police task force hunting a serial killer. All 133 seats in the auditorium were full, with many graduate students standing in back. Colorful displays lining tables depicted research projects from all over the world, such as a Belgian team’s photos of honeybees battling ants. (One theory blames diseased insects for infecting honeybees, causing them to develop CCD).

New York beekeepers told Sen. Hillary Clinton they had lost between 30 to 90 percent of their colonies due to CCD. “New York state apple growers told Sen. Clinton their orchards could be put at risk by CCD,” said Stephanie Bjornson, a spokeswoman for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“Sen. Clinton is also working with the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Agriculture Committee on finding for research into the cause and remedy for CCD,” Bjornson said.

Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Iowa in West Des Moines has provided insurance that protects crops from an array of perils, including storms, freezes and, of course, hail since it was founded in 1893. President Steve Rutledge hasn’t heard from any farmers worried about CCD bees.

“Iowa’s major cash crops – corn, wheat and soybeans – do not depend on bees for pollination because they pollinate naturally through wind and rain,” Rutledge said. “Fruits and vegetables are the crops that would be cause for concern.”

It can take awhile for farmers to notice the bees are gone because, though researchers agree that CCD bees are vanishing, no one has ever spotted mountains of dead bees anywhere. At the ISU symposium, Pennsylvania State University entomology professor Diana Cox Foster showed photos of autopsies performed on bees in Florida and Georgia, states afflicted with CCD. One bee was infected with dozens of pathogens.

Foster wondered if CCD was the honeybee version of a sexually transmitted disease. Other attendees believe pesticide contamination could be the culprit. ISU Extension Service entomologist Donald Lewis said another theory is that mites attach themselves to honeybees – the way ticks grab humans – then suck the bees dry, causing CCD conduct and death.

“There is technology out there now that makes it possible to dissect a bee as easily as you would have dissected a frog in high school,” Lewis said. “But we still haven’t figured out if bees have enough of a nervous system to actually feel pain. That’s a whole different mystery book to write.”