Bees are disappearing, but surely other insects will pollinate flowers?

Other insects can take up only some of the slack. When it comes time to pollinate crops, honeybees are trucked in to do the job during the short period that the flowers can be pollinated. There aren't enough local insects to handle the job effectively. Recovery is iffy. CCD seems to affect the trucked bees the most, wild bees very little and species other than honeybees not at all. However, there is some hope that a cause and treatment have been found.

Bees are specialist nectar feeders, so whilst their niche is very likely to be taken over, the speciality roles will be lost and this will likely cause a reduction in the flowering plants of an area. Yes butterflies do a similar job but are less hairy so transfer less pollen and hence, the chances of fertilisation are slimmer. Also bees are known to communicate food sources to members of their colony by doing a "waggle dance"- thus increasing the chances of bees transferring pollen to other plants. Hence, flowers are more likely to be visited by bees than butterflies.

I am guessing you are in the USA. Well here is some really interesting info many people don't know and the commercial bee business would prefer you don't know. The honey bee is NOT native to the Americas. They were introduced from Europe. They could actually be classified as an exotic nuisance pest. Yes, flowering plants in North America have survived millions of years without the honey bee. The wild populations of honey bees in America seem to be doing fine. It is only the bees owned by commercial bee keepers that are having the problem. Many of the foods grown these days do not need bees for pollination.

(a) other insects pollinate, true, but (b) honeybees are very effective and efficient pollinators, plus they're very relaxed at being "farmed", so that (c) no other pollinator can be used as a pollinating tool to make sure that large fields and orchards are pollinated on a schedule to help with 'organized' large-scale farming of fruits, nuts and vegetables for market. Even a reduction in 'farmed' honeybees puts a crimp in commercial farming that requires scheduled pollination. Personally, I'm not sure that's entirely a bad thing - it may result in the return of viability of smaller-scale farms, but it will likely result in even further increase in food prices and return to the days of variable food availability.

I'm partial to the bees though, does anyone have time to train the other insects to take on this responsibility? No bees will likely not recover like frogs, ocelots, and many birds will only be remembered for what they contributed and very much missed when the important link in the overall food chain suffers.

No.....many insects are "plant specific", specialized and look for certain plants. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio303/coevolution.htm

Why should the other insects have to pick up the slack? The Butterfly might say: "F that! I bust my wings every day and for what? NOTHING! I ain't doing more work!!!" Try convincing that butterfly - I bet you can't.

Yes, other insects can pollinate, but bees are the best at pollinating because they are covered with fine hairs.

ok thn . . sre corse the are actually lots more thn butterflys ,like beetle and stuff dnt wrry , jsy wrry bot honey lol XD..x