This past winter, about 30 percent of all the managed honeybees in the U.S. died. That's according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Such a die-off is no longer unusual. About a third of honeybees have ___1___ every winter since 2006.

Given that recent history, USDA entomologist Jeff Pettis characterized this as quote “___2___” given that quote "the problem does not appear to be getting worse."

Of course, the problem has been getting worse since at least the 1980s, when parasitic mites ___3___ the U.S. Our friend Apis mellifera has never recovered. Now so-called "Colony Collapse Disorder" or CCD continues to kill bees--who provide some $15-billion worth of economic good via pollination.

To really solve the problem would require much more than solving the mystery of CCD. It would require a ___4___ from the widespread use of pesticides that unintentionally impact bees and a ___4___ from the large-scale agriculture that forces them to ___5___ a single type of flower rather than their usual diverse diet. Plus, there's the globalization that allows bee-killing disorders to spread rapidly and easily. What a buzz kill.
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