On Final Approach

A bee hovers above blooming Bell's twinpod, a rare plant that grows only on shale slopes along Colorado's Front Range. (Photo: © Tom Yulsman) With warmer weather, the bees are finally out and about here at the foot of the Rockies in Colorado. I recently encountered this guy in mid-hover as he was eyeing what must have been delectable pollen from a rare and endangered plant growing north of Boulder. He's a honeybee, and a rather handsome one at that. He and his compatriots are in the news once again with the release last week of a major report on what has been causing millions of honeybees to die since 2006 in a phenomenon known as colony-collapse disorder. As the report puts it, "CCD is characterized by the sudden loss of worker adults from managed hives, leading to the eventual collapse of the entire colony within a few weeks." The ...