Food for Thought: All over the northern hemisphere this summer and early fall, beekeepers have been collecting the sweet harvest of billions of honey bees. Each little worker of the common honey bee (Apis mellifera) travels many miles a day in her short lifetime to gather nectar and pollen for her hive, and a 16 oz. jar of honey represents the nectar from 4.5 million flowers. The complex workings of a honey bee colony have been described as a superorganism and it is our incomplete understanding of this organism and its ecological requirements that has led to the recent phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder. Beekeepers in 36 states and many European countries have reported up to 80% of their hives have died this past year from an unknown cause. It seems the honey bees, who give us so much from their labors, need us to gain a deeper understanding of the natural world if they are to survive. For more information on honey bees, visit: Organic Consumers Association and Great Plains Nature Center. - John Burket