I’ve mentioned the massive bee deaths that have occurred over the last year, that have taken out something like one fourth of the domestic honeybee population. Slate’s Heather Smith has taken a look at the “colony collapse disorder” scare and says we should “bee not afraid.” Turns out wild honeybees have basically been extinct since 1987—and they’re not even native to North America to begin with.

It used to be that it was hard to eat a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich without a honeybee showing up and doing a little dance around your head. Hives (literally) grew on trees until 1987, when a mite called varroa destructor turned up in a honeybee colony in Wisconsin. Even for a parasite, varroa is less than charming. It looks like a microscopic baked bean, with sharp fangs used to slurp tiny droplets of blood from the abdomens of unsuspecting honeybees. Since these bites also transmit disease, like deformed wing virus and acute bee paralysis virus, an infested colony is kaput within four years. By 1994, an estimated 98 percent of the wild, free-range honeybees in the United States were gone. The number of managed colonies—those maintained by beekeepers—dropped by half.

Bee Not Afraid [Slate]