Kind of a strange story that we won’t have any answers to until the almond crop comes in, or not.
Believe the buzz -- or not?
Despite tales of billions of bees dying and crops at risk, experts disagree how serious the problem is.
By Jim Downing - Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:00 am PDT Sunday, March 11, 2007
Bees are dying by the billions. Nobody knows why. And the crops they pollinate -- California almonds especially -- are at risk.
Or at least that's been the buzz.
In the past month, the new and mysterious honeybee ailment known as "colony collapse disorder," which seems to cause entire hives of bees to leave home and never return, has made the front page of newspapers from Sacramento to New York. Fox News and National Public Radio aired reports. A "CBS Evening News" crew spent weeks following a bee-disease investigator around the nation. Even Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took up the issue, urging investors to hoard bees.
"The fewer there are, the more they're worth," Colbert said.
Yet despite all the attention, there's little solid data on the severity of the problem.
