Challenge #00254: Honey, and Plenty of Money

Bees.

[AN: Any relationship between certain corporations in this fiction and certain poison companies is strictly imaginary]

Fantraxin did not kill bees. That was its primary selling point. It killed all other insects that may predate on crops, but not the bees. How it did so, of course, was a company secret.

A secret that made them the largest corporation on the planet, almost overnight.

Or, at least, it would have. If they weren’t already the biggest global power ever to rig the game in their favour.

The use was, of course, instantly cleared in the United States. A process smoothed by the fact that the FDA was a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporation. Those who allied with the states followed. They believed.

They believed it was good to be friends with a company that made as much money as Fantraxin did.

And the fact that the bees were still dying…

Well. There was no proof it was Fantraxin.

And they made sure any proof quickly vanished. Or got discredited. Or simply overwhelmed by factual knowledge about Fantraxin, sponsored by Fantraxin, on popular networks owned by Fantraxin.

The thorn in the side, though, was the little island nations who never bought it. Who didn’t need it. Who actively banned it.

And who studied it in strict laboratory conditions to discover the unthinkable.

Fantraxin did not, in fact, kill bees.

They killed a symbiotic mite that lived on the bees. And then the bees got sick and died without their microscopic helpmates.

But, by then, the company was busy inventing pollenating machines.

To replace all the bees.

That the tiny island nations refused to export.

Because the places the bees were going was not safe.

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