Fruitless Fall

At the very beginning of Fruitless Fall, Rowan Jacobsen invites his reader to meet the most likable murder victim of the year: the honeybee, with its waggle dance, industrious nature, and communal wisdom. In 2007 some 30 billion bees vanished, fully one-third of all bees bred by beekeepers in the United States. Presumably, mysteriously, they met their death while out foraging. Without the honeybee, the future of agriculture didn't look so good. The shocking news grabbed the attention of mainstream media outlets across the country and spread around the globe; it seemed that with every passing day another headline identified a new culprit. Even so, by early 2008 a smoking gun had yet to be found.

For Jacobsen, a food writer, the disappearance of the honeybee is the ultimate whodunit. In Fruitless Fall he gathers the evidence presented over the past several years and retells the story of the honeybee colony collapse murder-mystery style.

One by one, promising suspects are proved innocent and new suspects introduced. Had an exotic parasite from Asia -- an exceptionally destructive mite -- killed the bees? Could electromagnetic radiation from cell phones have impaired the bees' navigational system? And what about genetically modified crops -- how did they affect bees? Were the insects dying from an imported virus? From too much low-level pesticide in the environment? Or perhaps too much of one particular pesticide? What about the antibiotics fed to bees to prevent digestive disease?

With cheap honey imported from China, as well as even cheaper honey substitutes, beekeepers in America make their money mostly by renting out bees as migrant farmworkers, trucking the insects thousands of miles to pollinate almonds in California, apples in Washington, blueberries in Maine. Were the colony collapses related to the stress of excessive transportation? Or were bees actually malnourished from feeding on crops that failed to provide them with enough protein-rich pollen? As Jacobsen sees it, honeybees were overstressed for too many reasons and in too many different ways, creating the potential for a general breakdown.

Continued...