More than one fourth of the bee colonies in the United States have disappeared and scientists are trying to find out why. (AP Photo/Photo, Times Record, Kaia Larsen)

Bee Disappearance Causing Buzz
Scientists seek answers

By Bill Lavelette
Where are all the bees going? Billions of honeybees are disappearing. Scientists are trying to figure out what is killing so many bees.

More than one fourth of the bee colonies in the United States are gone. The problem has been reported in 35 of the 50 states. Wisconsin is one of the states where bees are dying in large numbers.

Bees also have disappeared in Europe and South America. No one seems to know what is causing the problem.

Bees may be getting lost
Bees live in hives. Hives are grouped into colonies. Wild bees make their own hives. But domesticated bees live in artificial colonies. Humans make artificial hives.

Beekeepers are the people who maintain hives. Some people work full-time at beekeeping. They make a business out of beekeeping.

Each hive can have up to 30,000 bees. The U.S. has about 2.4 million bee colonies.

In the last two years, beekeepers in the U.S. started losing many bees. The bees did not return to their hives. They did not start hives elsewhere.

Scientists think the bees are dying because they cannot find their way back to the hives. Scientists at colleges and government agencies are studying the problem.

Without bees, crops may fail
Honeybees are important to the economy. They fertilize about one-third of the food that Americans eat. The process of fertilizing plants by bees is called pollination.

Bees pollinate hundreds of crops. Their value to farmers in the U.S. is estimated at $15 billion a year. Bees pollinate plants that form flowers as part of their growth.

One scientist says the cost of food will increase if bees keep disappearing. May Berenbaum works for the University of Illinois. Berenbaum said fruits, vegetables and nuts will cost more if fewer bees are around to pollinate plants. Berenbaum testified before a committee of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C, in March.

France banned chemical
One possible cause for the loss of bees is a chemical that was used in plants. France banned the chemical in the late 1990s. The chemical was used to treat some plants.

Bees would come in contact with the chemical when they would pollinate the plants. The government of France decided that the chemical was probably causing bees to lose their ability to find their way back to their hives.

The bees would then die of cold temperatures. The company that makes the chemical denies that its product affects bees.

Scientists are checking many possible reasons for the loss of so many bees. They say answers may not be known for months.