Lost Bees

It's been years, literally, since I've seen a honeybee in our garden. We're visited by plenty of wasps and carpenter bees and yellowjackets and other things I don't want. But the honeybees have gone. My son, Luke, who is interested in beekeeping, told me a disease has been literally choking them to death. This article explains it.

Bees across the United States have succumbed in recent years to a treacherous alien mite that invaded the country two decades ago. But scientists haven't been able to figure out why the parasite is so destructive.

Up to 60 percent of hives in some regions have been wiped out. Entire colonies can collapse within two weeks of being infested. North Carolina fears it is on the verge of an agricultural crisis. No state is immune.

A new study suggests the killing mechanism is complex. The mites not only eat bees from the inside out, but they suppress the bee's immune systems. That opens the door for a virus that deforms bee wings to take over. The entire hive, even its food source, gets infected.