What is the decline in the global population of honey bees?

Are there fewer bees where you live? Is it disease, insecticides, pollution, or that cell phone theory?

• My father has been a bee keeper for over 20 years. We have been discussing reasons why bees are dieing. Has anyone else noticed that there aren't ANY honey bees on clover or flowers in general. Bumble bees seem to be doing fine but the honey bee is in serious trouble! For the past 3 summers, my father's hives have barely produced enough honey for the hive to survive the winter. He has treated his hives for infestations, mites and things that plague hives but the population of the hives is in jeopardy. Bees fly out but arent flying back to the hives. No dead bees are being carried out...they are dieing outside away from the hives! Anyone with a great scientific explaination? Is it pesticides,pollution, or the increased use of cell phones which are causing bees to fly from the hives and never return? In NH--I haven't seen one bee all summer! Only bumble bees. I haven't even seen one yellow jacket in the two years that I have lived in the northeast! Start looking around!!!

• Answer:

  I have heard that there are periodic die-offs that have happened before. Many think it may be a virus. There are all sorts of bees around here in SoCal. It is odd that they don't come back but their system of direction finding is pretty sophisticated. I wouldn't be surprised is some sort of parasite or virus could affect their navigation. It can't be cell phones. That is an urban legend. Bees use the sun and polarized light patterns to navigate by. There is no way they could detect the radiation from cell phones any more than you could.