Honey, I'm Gone

This hardly slows the questions.

Colonies caught in the act of collapsing seem to display a raft of diseases. Is this the AIDS of bees?

"I don't like that particular analogy," Pettis says. "We actually don't have any evidence that the immune system is compromised. It's one of the ideas that we have, but the immune response genes are not turned on or off."

(Demonstrating its importance to commercial agriculture, even before the current crisis the honeybee was one of the first insects to have its entire genome sequenced.)

What do you think of the French referring to it as "mad bee disease"?

"They were using that because they thought some of their losses over the past 10 years were connected to low-level pesticides. It's one myth. But we can't make the connection to disorientation."

Where did the cellphone idea come from?

"The authors of that story were from Germany. It wasn't even a cellphone. It was an old cordless phone. They tested it in small hives and saw some very minor effects. We work with bees in a lot of areas where you can't even get a cellphone signal. The amount of energy is very, very remote. Even the authors themselves now say that was a big stretch."

What are the other theories?

"My favorite theory, which I throw out, is that the bees are out there creating their own crop circles, working very hard, physically pushing the crops down with their little legs. It fits. It explains the loss of bees and crop circles at the same time. At taxpayers' expense. I want credit for it."

Pettis pauses for effect.

"People say, 'You're kidding, right?' "