Design 100

30 • The Honeybee

Okay, we know they sting. We know they can be annoyingly persistent at picnics. But bees, while busy building hexagonal homes and producing silken honey, are vital to the nation's food supply, pollinating some $15 billion worth of produce in the United States every year. And they're in danger. Since late 2006, entire colonies of the buzzing critters have been disappearing. Theories behind colony collapse disorder, as it is called, include everything from cell phone signals to pesticides, mites, disease and global warming. None has been proved with any certainty. As it turns out, the flight of the honeybee could be far more painful than its sting. This is one master builder we don't dare consign to the corridors of natural history. -- Katherine Lagomarsino