No, wait, it's Earth's magnetic field, another caller told the University of Illinois professor.
When Miss Berenbaum went on the Internet, she found a parody Web site that quoted her as blaming rapper Kevin Federline and his concerts for the disappearance of the bees. She loved it.
The sudden disappearance of one-quarter of America's honeybees has brought out some strange ideas and downright myths.
"I just can't get any work done," Miss Berenbaum said. "I'm overwhelmed by e-mails. I can't keep up."
A couple of bee myths are big on the Internet.
A small German scientific study looking at a specific type of cordless phones and homing systems of bees exploded over the Internet and late-night television shows. It morphed into erroneous reports blaming cell phones for the honeybee die-off, which scientists are calling colony collapse disorder.
The scientist who wrote the paper, Stefan Kimmel, e-mailed the Associated Press to say that there is "no link between our tiny little study and the CCD-phenomenon. ... Anything else said or written is a lie." U.S. Department of Agriculture top bee researcher Jeff Pettis laughs at the idea because whenever he goes out to investigate dead bees, he cannot get a signal on his cell phone because the hives are in such remote areas.
Also on the Internet is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein on how humans would die off in four years if not for honeybees. It's wrong on two counts.
First, Einstein probably never uttered the idea, said Alice Calaprice, author of "The Quotable Einstein" and five other books on the physicist.
"I've never come across it in anything Einstein has written," she said. "It could be that someone had made it up and put Einstein's name on it."
Second, it's incorrect scientifically, Mr. Pettis said. There would be food left for humans because some food is wind-pollinated.
For his part, Mr. Pettis jokes that the bees are out creating crop circles "and it's working them to death."
For more information see: To Bee or not to Be
The fact that this article was even written indicates that the control system is very concerned that the masses are actually noticing what's going on. I don't know that I've seen a better example of mindlessly making fun of something that will end life as we know it. I saw another article that made the argument that humans would be fine, we'd just have to eat a pure grain and water diet. What nonsense - if the food supply decreases by even one half, much less the conservative two thirds theorized at this point, humanity as it is will not survive - period. So - whether Einstein was quoted correctly or not, the fact remains that the quote itself is on the money. It's another example of a straw-man argument - knock down that Einstein said it so you can dismiss the whole situation - when the fact of the matter is that the situation exists no matter who is quoted saying anything about it.