Billions of honeybees mysteriously dissapear

Scientists are puzzled at the huge numbers of honeybees that have vanished without a trace in the US, Europe and Brazil. Even the US government is worried because one-third of the US diet depends on pollination and that's mostly done by honeybees. From CNN:

The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil.

Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks.

If the bees were dying of pesticide poisoning or freezing, their bodies would be expected to lie around the hive. And if they were absconding because of some threat -- which they have been known to do -- they wouldn't leave without the queen.

Is the bees mystifying disappearance a warning sign of global warming or some sort of an impending natural disaster or is this just simply a case of workers going on strike and refusing to work?

This bee mystery reminds of the X-Files. In the TV series and the movie, bees play an important role in the X-Files mythology. They are used by the secret government to act as a carrier for an alien virus derived from genetically altered corn crops. Hmmm, maybe that's where all the bees have gone to. Anyone know of any secret government test facilities where they grow genetically altered corn crops?