Honey Bee Deaths Now Worldwide

image source under Creative Commons


The bees are still in the news...

For several decades, colony collapse disorder (CCD) -- a mysterious condition where entire bee colonies die for seemingly no obvious reason -- has been inflicting bee populations across both Europe and the US. But scientists from the United Nations (UN) say the phenomenon is now a global crisis, afflicting bees across China, Japan, and Africa, as well as in other places.-Mass honeybee deaths now occurring worldwide, says UN

As a side note, when I was preparing the post title, I wondered if it should be honey bee or honeybee. I found the following to provide an answer:

First, it must be explained why the name of the bee appears in the title as two words, though “honeybee” is the customary form in the literature of apiculture. Regardless of dictionaries, we have in entomology a rule for insect common names that can be followed. It says: If the insect is what its name implies, write the two words separately; otherwise run them together. Thus we have such names as house fly, blow fly, and robber fly contrasted with dragonfly, caddicefly, and butterfly, because the latter are not flies, just as an aphislion is not a lion and a silverfish is not a fish. The honey bee is an insect and is pre-eminently a bee; “honeybee” is equivalent to “Johnsmith.”-Honeybee or Honey Bee?