Review of A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply

"Alert observers of current events may have noticed, half buried in the general melange of war/gas prices/ politics/ celeb gossip that passes for What’s Happening Now, some alarming news about bees cropping up in the past few seasons. They’re going missing. To anyone with a glancing familiarity with how ecosystems work, this is an upsetting prospect. Besides being iconic, bees play a crucial role in the agricultural process; without them, we can kiss a lot of food crops good-bye.

When a news broadcast touches upon the subject of the missing bees, it’s usually in mystified tones. Where, oh, where could the bees be? What’s causing this phenomenon? Woodstock author Michael Schacker offers some plausible answers—ones that a lot of Powers That Be probably don’t want to accept. To the extent that one accepts his theory—and his evidence seems compelling—this explains both Colony Collapse Disorder (as the bees’ vanishing act is officially called) and the media silence surrounding its roots.

Referencing the French experience with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), Schacker implicates IMD, a relatively new pesticide and close cousin to DDT, manufactured in its most widespread form by Bayer. This revelation has a feeling of inevitability to it, like finding out that the murderer who drew the light sentence was the Congressman’s cousin. Though Schacker’s tone can sometimes get a little strident, any initial annoyance on the reader’s part is dissipated by the urgency of his message. By the time we get to the section titled “The Government Responds?” we are very much with him."

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