As Apiary Season Begins, Still No Firm Answers On CCD & Beekeepers Fear The Worst - BBC

The pollination of crops by bees is responsible for a third of the food produced in the US. One in every three mouthfuls has been touched by their tiny feet; but our six-legged friends are in trouble.

They are getting sick and leaving their hives. Without bees, food gets more expensive - some products could disappear altogether.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) emerged last year, and by spring 2007 bees were dying in huge numbers - over the year as a whole the total bee population fell by 30%.

Some beekeepers lost closer to 90%, and the fear is it will get worse. Beekeeper Gilly Sherman says: "It's worse than last year, and last year was worse than the year before, so it's bad, and there are a lot of good big beekeepers that are having a lot of problems. "I think we're coming in for a big train wreck."

EDIT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7312358.stm

The California almond crop is the worlds' largest managed pollination event by orders of magnitude, requiring bees from all over the country. Ironically, I just returned from southern California where 16-32 hives are placed at the end of every other row of trees for mile after mile. Anyway, CCD was not a problem this year. Some bee wranglers have reported some colony losses, but that is normal and as far as I'm aware, no one is yet reporting any anomalous problems this year. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

The guys I know who are professionals reported losses from 20 - 40% last year, with some variability from operation to operation.