SOLVED: Mystery of the Dying Bees

Why are all the bees dying? 
The quick answer: Its the large variety of PESTICIDES & FUNGICIDES APPROVED BY THE EPA for use on crops.

Bee colonies across the nation are in serious decline. This new, unexplained condition has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). It is estimated that about a quarter of the 2.4 million commercial bee colonies across the nation have been lost just since last autumn, and in some areas the loss is almost 90 percent. The impact of this loss is enormous because honey bees are the primary pollinators of much of the nation’s food crops.
California, producers of almonds, apples, alfalfa, avocados, blueberries, citrus, tree fruit, and watermelons, among many other crops, depend on a healthy bee population for crop pollination. We need every bee!

Read more here: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpo…

“Bees are dying in record numbers—and now the government admits that an extremely common pesticide is at least partially to blame.

For more than a decade, the Environmental Protection Agency has been under pressure from environmentalists and beekeepers to reconsider its approval of a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, based on a mounting body of research suggesting they harm bees and other pollinators at tiny doses. In a report released Wednesday, the EPA basically conceded the case.

The report card was so dire that the EPA “could potentially take action” to “restrict or limit the use” of the chemical by the end of this year.

Marketed by European chemical giants Syngenta and Bayer, neonics are the most widely used insecticides both in the United States and globally. In 2009, the agency commenced a long, slow process of reassessing them—not as a class, but rather one by one (there are five altogether). Meanwhile, tens of millions of acres of farmland are treated with neonics each year, and the health of US honeybee hives continues to be dismal.”