Editorial: Mystery or metaphor?

Saturday, June 2, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

The trouble with honeybees is they are vanishing.

All over the world, beekeepers say their hives are turning up virtually empty - with nary a dead bee body left behind.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory - yes, there is such a place - estimate that about one-quarter of the nation's 2.4 million honeybee colonies have disappeared this year. And a story by The Washington Post on Friday says similar bee colony collapses have been reported by Brazil, Germany, Spain and Taiwan, among other countries.

So what's the buzz over losing a few domesticated bees?

Honeybees are among the creatures that pollinate about one-third of the world's food supply. Hummingbirds, bats, butterflies and beetles, among other insects and animals, contribute to this important process. But honeybees are staple workers. The Post reports that half of the nation's commercial beekeepers truck their hives to California in the early spring to pollinate massive crops there.

No one has been able to discern just why, or to where, these busy little buzzers have vanished. But theories abound, of course. One idea is that increased cellphone traffic has created electronic interference in the airwaves. Another notion is that perhaps even bees have their limits when it comes to being driven hither and yon to pollinate another cucumber field or cranberry bog.

The disappearance may even be a good thing for America's native pollinators, such as mason bees, one naturalist told the Post. The continent had no honeybees until European explorers brought them.

Still, some sociologists wonder whether the colony collapse could be a metaphor for the unraveling of an increasingly complicated society - namely, ours. And in that sense, maybe the bees aren't dying out, but are simply trying to tell us something.