A new disease known as CCD—colony collapse disorder—describes a phenomenon that is baffling beekeepers and the farmers who depend on their services. In short, honeybee colonies are disappearing at a frightening rate but nobody knows why exactly. In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that a Columbia University researcher thinks he has identified the cause but is reluctant to discuss it while a scientific journal considers his paper on the subject. Though commercial beekeepers do produce honey, their most important role is to provide thousands of little pollinators that buzz around orchards and fields and help make apples and pumpkins grow. In addition, wild honeybee populations have also declined seriously. Thus the alarm.

Enter David Hackenberg, a Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, beekeeper who has become the point person, the go-to guy when journalists want to know about CCD. Hackenberg, a loquacious but unfortunate expert who has lost 2,000 of his 3,000 hives, was the chief subject of a long article on CCD in the August 6 edition of The New Yorker and was contacted by NPR twice for an interview, the second time on September 6 as he tended his hives. Hackenberg, a very busy bee, did the this field interview on his cell phone. He told NPR “. . . it’s been a real long, hard year, to put it bluntly.”