“Hopefully we can head that off.”

Penn State has 14 researchers, including entomologists, toxicologists and physiologists looking at all angles of the problem.

Frazier, the university’s honeybee researcher, said they believe in a multi-cause scenario, combined and interconnected, involving disease, weather and pesticide use.

Doan and Hackenberg say that’s what chemical manufacturers want you to think, but they say they are 100 percent sure the culprit is a neonicotinoid pesticide that acts on the central nervous system of bugs. It is not applied to the surface of a plant, but is delivered as a coating on the seeds. Farmers often can’t avoid it. There may be no other seeds available. Nevertheless, in May 2008, Germany banned seed treatment with neonicotinoids, citing negative effects upon — you guessed it — bee colonies. Neonicotinoids are also banned in one region of France. The Oxford Times in the United Kingdom cited neonicotinoids as the most probable cause of honeybee demise.

Why don’t we know what they know in Europe? Neonicotinoid is produced by Bayer, a multi-national corporation with deep pockets and enormous political clout, Hackenberg said. So far, beekeepers’ discussions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been futile, he said.

Geary, the Danville hobbyist, said he believes neonicotinoids may be the primary culprit — not only in destruction of bees, but other creatures across the ecosystem. Humans, too, have this chemical in their system, he said.

In a phone interview from Maine Thursday, where he was collecting hives for return to New York and Pennsylvania, Hackenberg said that when he and colleagues met with the EPA from noon to 4 p.m. June 3 in Washington, their discussions were known by Bayer almost instantly.

“Before 6 o’clock, Bayer was condemning us for what we said to the EPA,” he said.

Hackenberg said he thinks Bayer controls the EPA through its former employees who now work for the agency.

“And for every congressman or senator we get to understand our side, the chemical companies can unduly influence 15 to do what they want,” he said.

The Bayer Corp. is just one of many manufacturers that produce this class of chemistry, but is among the largest, said Jack Boyne, director of communications for Bayer Cropscience, in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

He said the beekeepers may have some disagreements with some positions the corporation is taking, but Bayer would never condemn anyone for expressing his concerns.

“We have probably done more bee research on this pesticide than anyone else,” Boyne said. “We know a lot about it.”

He argues that neonicotinoid, which is actually a class of chemistry, is not likely to be the primary cause of CCD.

“There really is no evidence at all to support that,” he said.