Aunt Ruthie and Paul Smeenge dropped by with a hand basket of freshly bottle honey. Grand Haven, MI

I love when the story shows up as I drink a hot cup of coffee. I have bought Aunt Ruthie's honey before, on display at the Coffee Grounds in the Grand Haven Entertainment district. So today, a women in her late seventies showed up with a basket, a laden basket, and replenished the line of honey jugs along the counter. Aunt Ruthie deferred all my questions about colony collapse disorder and re-queening to her husband, who rested at a table. His head sported a wavy fullness of pale blond hair. He said he's heard that cellphones are confusing the bee's navigational thinking, but he heard a similar issue from high power lines. He didn't see a problem because he keeps his hives under these lines inside the city of Grand Haven. He did report a number of dead hives to me, and similar losses have driven beekeepers he knows out of business. His collection has decreased to sixty, from a high of 500 in his busy years. That's largely due to selling off hives as he winds down his lifetime hobby, a man approaching the age of 80. He started enjoying honey daily as a teenager, and the man looks much younger than an octogenarian. I made him laugh by suggesting I was going to catch up by drinking honey by the gallon. "Don't go into sugar shock," he warned with a big laugh.

"Imagine a world without bees", Aunt Ruthie said as they left with an empty basket on her arm.