The e-mail response to my article with the headline "Could genetically modified crops be killing honeybees?" was universally positive from laypeople and beekeepers. Most researchers, however, rejected the idea out of hand.
I concluded the article with the suggestion that matching colonies should be sited in farm and non-farm regions in order to determine whether, indeed, agricultural practices were the basis for the die-off. (The new die-off has been virtually instantaneous throughout the country, not spreading at the slower pace of conventional classic diseases.)
When it appeared that others weren't interested in this experiment, I undertook to do my own investigation at my own expense. Because my own bees had died the previous winter, it was necessary to establish new colonies. I established eight colonies in new wooden hives in order to prevent disease transfer from the old hives in case there was a pathogen remaining...
Full Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/10/HOK7SRH5R.DTL
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More on Bees & Genetically Engineered Crops
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Bees near cropland fall short in honey production keeper says
By John McDonald
San Francisco Chronicle, November 10 2007
Straight to the Source
