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Where Have Allthe Bees Gone? Scientists who study insects have a real mystery on theirhands.All across the country，honeybees are leaving their hives and neverreturning. Researchers call this phenomenon colony-collapse1 disorder.Accordingto surveys of beekeepers across the country，25 to 40 percent of the honeybeesin the United States have vanished from their hives since last fall.So far，noone can explain why. Colony collapse is a serious concern because bees playan important role in the production of about one-third of the foods we eat.Asthey feed，honeybees spread pollen from flower to flower.Without this process，aplant cant produce seedsor fruits. Now，a group of scientists andbeekeepers have teamed up to try to figure out whats causing the alarmingcollapse of so many colonies. By sharing their expertise in honeybee behavior，health，and nutrition，team members hope to find out whats contributingto thedecline and to prevent bee disappearance in the future. Itcould be that disease is causing the disappearance of the bees. To explore that possibility，Jay Evans，a researcher at the United States Department ofAgriculture Bee Research Laboratory2，examines bees taken from coloniesthat are collapsing.We know what a healthy bee should look like on theinside，and we can look for physical signs of disease, he says. And bees fromcollapsing colonies dont look very healthy. Their stomachs are worndown，compared to the stomachs of healthy bees, Evans says.It may be that aparasite is damaging the bees digestive organs. Their immune systems may not be working as they should.Moreover，they have high levels of bacteria inside theirbodies. | 
