Imagine the following scary scenario: A colony is found deserted, with thousands of its inhabitants dead. Any survivors have long since fled, abandoning their babies and their food supply.

Autopsies on the dead reveal numerous and bizarre mutations. Intestinal tracts are badly scarred. Internal organs are messed up. Glands are black with infection.

Sound like the start of a summer horror flick about a harrowing infectious disease or a vision of a post-apocalyptic world?

Unfortunately, this horror show is all too real -- and it's a lot scarier than any movie I've seen lately. The above scene illustrates the baffling epidemic that is destroying our nation's honey bees.

The eerie and mysterious phenomenon that is causing our bees to die at has been making headlines [0] for a while. By now, most of us know [0] that the honey bees are disappearing at alarming rates.

Now known as the Colony Collapse Disorder, we know that it's taking place in 35 states, as well as Canada and Europe. We know that it wreaks havoc with the pollination of apples, almonds, cherries, berries, pumpkins, and more. It's estimated the losses will cost $150 million.

Despite this, I was truly spooked to read this article in the Los Angeles Times [1] about what scientists are discovering as their investigations probe deeper into the problem. When they put dead bees under a microscope, they expected to link the epidemic to mites, bacteria, pesticides, and viruses.

Instead, they found severely damaged and deformed bees and they are at a loss to explain the cause. So far, researchers have isolated that the reason is biological, but they can't pinpoint a reason for the massive die-off.

The article is an interesting read, because it covers several possible culprits that could be responsible for the disappearance. For instance, they take a closer look at my favorite explanation -- pesticides. For a while, scientists focused on a class of pesticides, but the theory isn't panning out. France banned those pesticides several years ago, and yet their bees continue to die off.

The good news, I suppose, is that there appears to be a serious effort to determine what is happening to the bees in order to find solutions. I just hope that they uncover the answers soon.

Meanwhile, the vanishing remains a very creepy and unsettling mystery.