The crisis has so captured the public’s imagination that students at an elementary school in Griffin, Ga., after learning about the bees’ plight, put on a play about honey bees to raise community awareness, with proceeds earmarked “to help with research for CCD to save the honey bees.” The college has established a special fund for individuals or beekeeping organizations that want to contribute to Penn State’s research effort on CCD.

Cox-Foster says the bee die-off and resulting news coverage also has spurred collaborations with other scientists across the country. For instance, Ian Lipkin and colleagues at Columbia University’s Northeast Biodefense Center are helping to identify the microbes and viruses associated with CCD colonies. Lipkin, who normally studies human diseases, has developed state-of-the-art technologies for pathogen surveillance and discovery that could be helpful in understanding Colony Collapse Disorder, according to Cox-Foster. “The more people we have thinking about it, the better the chances that we’ll find a solution,” she says.

Other Penn State faculty actively studying Colony Collapse Disorder include Nancy Ostiguy, associate professor of entomology, Chris Mullin, professor of entomology, David Geiser, associate professor of plant pathology, and Liwang Cui, associate professor of entomology. The Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group also includes researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the state departments of agriculture in Pennsylvania and Florida, North Carolina State University, the University of Illinois, the University of Delaware, Bee Alert Technology Inc. (a technology transfer company affiliated with the University of Montana), the University of Arizona, Columbia University, and others.

To contribute to the research effort on Colony Collapse Disorder, readers can send a check, payable to Penn State, to The Pennsylvania State University, 230 Agricultural Administration Building, University Park, PA 16802. The check should be accompanied by a letter indicating the gift is to be used for honey bee research. Gifts to Penn State are tax deductible.

—Chuck Gill