Peak Bees

A perfect storm of perils and threats is behind the disastrous decline in honeybees over the last few years, a UN report warns today.
Scientists have identified more than a dozen factors - from chemical pesticides to the loss of wild flowers - which are conspiring against one of the world's best loved, and most useful, insects.

And without 'profound changes' to the way people manage the landscape, the , the declines are likely to continue, threatening food security and food prices, they say.
Embattled: A perfect storm of perils and threats is behind the disastrous decline in honeybees over the last few years, a UN report has warned
The scale of the vanishing bee population has shocked environmentalists.

In Britain the number of bees has halved by the mid-1980s, while in America honey producers have been badly hit by colony collapse disorder - a mysterious condition in which entire hives vanish..

Disastrous decline in honeybees is unlikely to stop due to a perfect storm of threats, UN warns
By David Derbyshire