The farmer's abiding friend for

The farmer's abiding friend for thousands of years, the honeybee in America stands on the edge of the abyss. In recent years, two tiny spider-like parasites have been weakening and killing bee populations across the United States. While the mass media have played up the threat of Africanized "killer" bees in the Southwest, the rest of the country has been losing 80 percent or more of its wild honeybee populations.