If you know me at all, you’re probably expecting my phobia to show itself here and you are waiting for me to complain about my favorite buzzing nemeses. Well, you’re wrong, this is actually about a phenomenon involving bees called Colony Collapse Disorder. I read an article about it a month or two back that was extremely interesting while at the same time disturbing, but just about completely forgot about it until Bill Maher refreshed my memory in his closing monologue on this past week’s Real Time. Basically, entire colonies of bees have been more or less completely vanishing all across North America. What does this mean, exactly? Well, if you didn’t pay attention in middle school science, I’ll sum it up for you: Bees pollinate plants so that they can reproduce. Without bees, plants don’t get pollinated and don’t reproduce. Get it now? Plants will die. Without plants, people don’t have food. Without food, people die. Now, anyone who’s ever been around bees when I’m around knows how I feel about them, but I just can’t comprehend how is this not being taken more seriously. I know I sure like food and life would be pretty tough if farmers were unable to produce the crops that the world is completely dependent on because the majority of North American bee colonies were allowed to just vanish. If you want to read up about this, the Wikipedia link that I posted earlier in this rant is a good source of information, as is this article at the Discovery Channel’s website.