For bee alarmists, Groundhog Day comes in June

Did you think Goundhog Day only comes in February? For anti-insecticide zealots and others in the environmentalist movement who've been preoccupied for years with bees and "colony collapse disorder," it actually comes every June. That's when the Bee Informed Partnership--a University of Maryland-based project supported by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)--releases the results of its annual survey of honeybee colony losses and health. In Bill Murray's 1993 "Groundhog Day" movie, cynical TV weatherman Phil Connors is condemned to relive the same day over and over in a little Pennsylvania town until he learns the right "life lessons." Each June, eco-campaigners work themselves into a carefully orchestrated lather over bee losses, getting caught in a time loop of endlessly repeating the same false and misguided claims about the BIP report.