Bad News for Anyone Who Eats

Poor little honeybee. Something is upsetting you so much that whole colonies of you have abruptly disappeared, in areas across North America and now in Europe, too.
So say the believers. The existence of the problem, called colony collapse disorder, is disputed, with naysayers dismissing it entirely. Those who do believe are taking this purported problem very seriously, since most fruits and vegetables require pollination, a job done best by bees. We have no technology capable of replacing these busy little workers, and so anything that causes a beekeeper to call an entomologist asking what could cause him/her to "lose" up to 90% of their bees overnight is viewed as something serious, indeed.
Jerry Bromenshenk, an entomologist at the University of Montana, is one of those trying to determine what is causing the die-off. His hope is to produce a working version of Dr. McCoy's medical tricorder, for bees, and to that end he has already been setting up tiny microphones at hive entrances, taking sound samples back to his lab for analysis. It is already proven that a colony will change the sound it produces within 30 seconds of exposure to a chemical, producing unique "sonic signatures" that can be used to ID the chemical, and so his theory is that beekeepers could use his tricorders to assess hive health.
The Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group, working out of Penn State University, agree with Bromenshenk on the gravity of the situation. Check out the educational podcast, "Honey Bees in Crisis", if you want to know more about the problem.
It is not a 21st century original, as some think. Reports of the phenomenon recorded in apiculture literature date to 1896. There is no known cause, but when it does strike puzzled apiarists find themselves looking at hives with a complete absence of adult bees (although there is little to no build-up of dead bees to be seen), and unhatched brood that have been abandoned, contrary to normal bee behaviour. Those worried about the situation are forwarding causes that range from pesticides and GMO's to electromagnetic radiation from use of the omnipresent cell phone. None of them, however, have been pinpointed as the single cause.
No matter what the cause, given the importance of the bee in our food chain, colony collapse disorder is something we should at least wonder about. You can just dismiss it, as many do, but first you might want to inform yourself on the issue. Than you'll be better able to decide whether or not you agree with Greta Lorge of "Wired" who says, "Colony collapse disorder is bad news for anyone who eats."