<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceType"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceName"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
h1
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:24.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-weight:bold;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue>
<div class=Section1>
<p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Article
from Smithsonian magazine's website: <a
href="http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/june/interview.php">http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/june/interview.php</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Interview:
May Berenbaum<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><em id=sub-title><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>On the role of cellphones, pesticides and alien
abductions in the honeybee crisis</span></font></i></em><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>By David
Zax<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><b><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'>WEB EXCLUSIVE - Extended Interview</span></font></i></b><br>
<i><span style='font-style:italic'><br>
Honeybee populations in more than 20 states have mysteriously crashed. May
Berenbaum, of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Illinois</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> at
Urbana-Champaign, studies "colony collapse disorder" and its
consequences.<br>
</span></i><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>There was a major decline in bee populations
20 years ago. Why is this more troubling?<br>
</span></b>In the '80s the cause was clear: the accidental introduction of a
parasitic mite that saps honeybees of vitality. This time, the bees are simply
disappearing. There are no dead bodies. It's as if they're not coming home.
Among the hypotheses is that their navigation system is perturbed. Honeybees
have an incredibly sophisticated system for finding floral nectar and pollen
sources, providing directions to their nest mates to promising nectar and
pollen sources, recruiting them to these sources, and having everybody come
home safely. And that's not what appears to be happening.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>What could be causing this?</span></b><br>
Name something and it's been suspected. A British paper [suggested] that
cellphone transmission is interfering with bee navigation. There's absolutely
no evidence for it. People have also suggested jet contrails, wireless Internet,
changes in the earth's magnetic field. More plausibly, high-fructose corn
syrup, used to supplement honeybee diets, is not nutritionally very complete
and has been shown to influence behavior. Some new pesticides that are known to
affect behavior are in wider use, and those may be a factor. People are also
suggesting a sort of multiple stress disorder. <br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Is this really a crisis?</span></b><br>
It's a crisis on top of a crisis. [It had previously been projected that]
commercial beekeeping [might] cease to exist in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> by 2035—and
that was before colony collapse disorder. And we can't count on wild
pollinators because we've so altered the landscape that many are no longer
viable.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>It's not just about running out of honey?</span></b><br>
Honey is trivial compared with the importance of pollination. The
two-billion-dollar almond industry in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
depends entirely on honeybees. Blueberries, melons, squashes—all kinds of
crops rely heavily on honeybees. Over three-quarters of flowering
plants—the foundations for most terrestrial food chains—depend on
[honeybees and other animal] pollinators. Yet we know pathetically little about
most of them.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Why can't we just pollinate these flowers
ourselves?<br>
</span></b>First of all, we're talking about thousands of acres. Secondly,
flowers are very complicated. They're designed to keep out inappropriate
visitors. They don't want any visitor to be able to take pollen away, so it's
not a simple problem of dusting an orchard with pollen and hoping it gets to
tiny stigmatic surface of the flower where it needs to go in order to fertilize
the female cells.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>This is probably the wrong question, but
aren't bees a little scary?</span></b><br>
They're scary in that they have no business being so smart. They're organized
and capable of unbelievable feats, such as communicating exact locations to
their nest mates by orienting to polarized light and the sun. I can't drive to <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Decatur</st1:place></st1:City> without MapQuest,
and these bees find their way over much vaster distances. Honeybees
air-condition their homes, know when more foragers are needed, know when more
nurses are needed.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>I'll offer my theory about their
disappearance: Honeybees know something we don't know and they're getting out.</span></b><br>
I like the theory that visitors from another planet have decided they were
going to abduct the smartest organisms on the planet, and they've picked the
honeybees.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>More generally, you've mused on how
intertwined human affairs are with bugs in one of your books, <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>Bugs in the System</span></i>. How has the fate of
human societies depended on bugs in the past?<br>
</span></b>The outcome of more wars has depended on insects than all the
weapons combined. Insects as vectors of disease—typhus, malaria, yellow
fever. Often armies are defeated not by brilliant generals, but by
disease-carrying insects. Napoleon's attempt at conquest of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> was a
complete bust in large part because of the staggering losses to typhus. Typhus
played a role in probably 90 percent of the troop loss. So but for the body
louse, they'd be speaking French now in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moscow</st1:place></st1:City>.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>You've also written several books of popular
essays about entomology. How can there be so much to write about bugs?<br>
</span></b>Well, there's a million of 'em. Talk about job security. And
frankly, they interact with people in more different ways than any other group
of organisms. Even culture, symbols—metamorphosis, this transcendent
theme in literature around the world. It's been argued that pyramids are
basically deified dung pats, that they are inspired by scarab beetles, who
emerge from dung pats after this period of quiescence. We're just surrounded by
insect symbols, we make use of insects, wars have been fought over insect
products. A silk thread can sustain a greater weight than a steel cable of
comparable dimensions. This is insect spit! Basically, it's caterpillar spit.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>I don't like bugs at all. When most people
study these bugs, do they get over their aversion?<br>
</span></b>That's one reason I teach a course here we call "general
education," a course for nonscientists. I don't expect people to become
entomologists or even necessarily to love bugs, but at least to think before
reflexively stepping on them. They are just capable of the most amazing things,
and many of the things that they do we couldn't survive on this planet without
them doing. Waste disposal—it's a dirty job, someone's got to do it.
Without insects, this world would be a filthy place. They're about the only
things that can break down dead bodies and take care of dung. So these things,
we just take them for granted. They're small, therefore they're insignificant.
But frankly, tiny diamonds aren't insignificant.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>