© AFP
Ottawa - A Canadian museum launched an investigation on Friday into the sudden death of 20 000 bees on display in a glass encased hive.
"All 20 000 bees died within 48 hours," Amanda Fruci, publicist for the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, told AFP.
"The cause is being investigated but we know for sure that it wasn't colony collapse syndrome because that involves bees leaving a hive and never coming back, and in this case they all died in the hive."
In normal times, bee communities naturally lose around five percent of their numbers.
But with the syndrome known as colony collapse disorder (CDD), a third, half - sometimes even 90% or all - of the insects can be wiped out.
In the United States, government figures released last year showed a 29% drop in beehives in 2009, coming on the heels of declines of 36 and 32% in 2008 and 2007.
Mysterious decimation of bee populations have also been reported in Europe, Japan and elsewhere in recent years, threatening agricultural crops that depend on the honey-making insects for pollination.
Comment: From a symbolic point of view, this would appear to be a stark warning to the USA and the world. From what we suspect of the effects of comets on the solar system and planet - electrical phenomena and major earth changes - THE symbol of the USA lying dead from electrocution says it all.