As the world's most abundant and widespread pollinator, honey bees (Apis mellifera) play a critical role in our food security and make an important contribution to the human economy.   Because of their global importance to agriculture, there has been a great deal of consternation surrounding the widespread recent decline of honey bee populations.  Amid the sometimes wild speculation about what might be causing these declines, it has been suggested in several popular media outlets that pollen from genetically engineered Bt crops might be poisoning honey bees.  It should be emphasized, however, that there are not any scientific publications indicating that Bt crops have anything to do with honey bee declines.  All studies performed to date support the contention that Bt toxins, called Cry proteins, are in fact toxic to only a narrow range of insect groups.  For example, the Bt transgenes that have so far been incorporated into crops such as corn and canola are toxic to Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) or Coleoptera (beetles).  Although there is the possibility that these Cry proteins are toxic to certain taxa, such as caddisflies (Trichoptera), that are closely related to the target group4, hymenopterans (bees, wasps, and ants) are not closely related to beetles or butterflies and moths, and in the laboratory no toxicity test has ever shown Cry proteins to cause any harm to hymenopterans.