Pesticides Indicted in Bee Deaths (Biodevastation) (Reprint‪)‬

Gene Brandi will always rue the summer of 2007. That's when the California beekeeper rented half his honeybees, or 1,000 hives, to a watermelon farmer in the San Joaquin Valley at pollination time. The following winter, 50% of Brandi's bees were dead. "They pretty much disappeared," says Brandi, who's been keeping bees for 35 years. Since the advent in 2006 of colony collapse disorder, the mysterious ailment that continues to decimate hives across the country, Brandi has grown accustomed to seeing up to 40% of his bees vanish each year, simply leaving the hive in search of food and never coming back. But this was different. Instead of losing bees from all his colonies, Brandi watched the ones that skipped watermelon duty continue to thrive.