SACRAMENTO, CA—Putting to rest a mystery that has confounded scientists for a decade, a team of biologists from the University of California, Berkeley announced Wednesday that billions of bees believed to have died in recent years were discovered living anonymously in a quiet neighborhood in Sacramento. “Over the years, the scientific community has come up with a number of theories to explain the unusual disappearance of bee populations throughout the world, but it turns out they’ve been in Sacramento the whole time,” said Berkeley Department of Entomology director Lucinda Ronan, who admitted that she and her colleagues had “never thought to look” for the millions of colonies’ worth of flying insects in the sleepy, tree-lined Northern California city and eventually came upon them in an out-of-the-way subdivision entirely by accident. “Our working hypothesis is that they may have been burned out from the incessant task of pollination, or felt too much pressure to produce honey. Regardless, they up and left without any notice, opting for a low-key, simple lifestyle in a nice, peaceful community, completely out of the limelight. It really seems to suit them.” Residents of the unassuming housing development where the bees have evidently lived for the past several years described the immense swarm of insects as “reserved,” “polite,” and dedicated to providing a nice, clean hive for their larvae.

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