More on Bees

This is a good AP article with some facts and numbers:8

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20070503/NEWS/705030344/1010/NEWS05

And here are some of the numbers:

[Pollinated by bees:]
Among them: [alfalfa,] apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The [5x normal die-offs] started in November and seems to have spread to 27 states, with similar collapses reported in Brazil, Canada and parts of Europe.

A congressional study said honeybees add about $15 billion a year in value to our food supply.

Captive colonies in the United States shrank from 5.9 million in 1947 to 2.4 million in 2005.