THE MYSTERY OF DISAPPEARING BEES IS SOLVED

Apparently the best selling chemical pesticide named Clothianidin produced by the German company Bayer CorpScience is the focus of a criminal prosecution launched in Europe by a coalition of German beekeepers and consumer protection advocates.

The complaint is part of efforts by groups on both sides of the Atlantic to determine how much Bayer CropScience knows about the part that clothianidin may have played in the death of millions of honeybees.

Clothianidin and related pesticides generated about $1 billion of Bayer CropScience's $8.6 billion in global sales last year. The coalition is demanding that the company withdraw all of the pesticides.

"We're suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants," said Harro Schultze, the coalition's attorney. Bayer's ... management has to be called to account, since the risks ... have now been known for more than 10 years."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the pesticide in 2003 under the condition that Bayer submit additional data.

Clothianidin, sold under the brand name Poncho, is used to coat corn, sugar beet and sorghum seeds and protect them from pests. A nerve toxin that has the potential to be toxic for bees, it gets into all parts of the plant that grows from the coated seeds.

A lawsuit, which the environmental group filed Aug. 19 in federal court in Washington, accuses the EPA of hiding the honeybee data.

The group thinks the data might show what role chlothianidine played in the loss of millions of U.S. honeybee colonies.

Three months ago, German regulators quietly suspended sales of chlothianidine and related chemicals after the family of pesticides was blamed for the destruction of more than 11,000 bee colonies.