BELTSVILLE, Md. -- The answer to what happened to America's vanishing honeybees is simple, a caller told entomologist May Berenbaum: Bee rapture. They were called away to heaven.

No, it's Earth's magnetic field, another caller told the University of Illinois professor.

And when Ms. Berenbaum went on the Internet, she found a parody news site that quoted her as blaming Kevin Federline's music for the disappearance of the bees. She loved it.

The sudden disappearance of one-quarter of America's honeybees has brought out some strange ideas and downright myths:

A small German scientific study looking at a specific type of cordless phones and homing systems of bees morphed into erroneous reports blaming cell phones for the honeybee die-off, which scientists are calling Colony Collapse Disorder. The scientist who wrote the paper, Stefan Kimmel, e-mailed The Associated Press to say that there is "no link between our tiny little study and the CCD-phenomenon ? anything else said or written is a lie."

Albert Einstein said humans would die off in four years if not for honeybees. Not so fast. First, the noted scientist probably never said it, according to Alice Calaprice, author of "The Quotable Einstein" and five other books on the physicist. Second, it's incorrect scientifically, said U.S. Department of Agriculture top bee researcher Jeff Pettis. Indeed, there would be food left for humans because some food is wind-pollinated.