There is a serious crisis within this country that relates to a little creature many of us grew up viewing on TV as a friendly cartoon character.  Perhaps the most notable of saying that people know is "...Busy as a bee."  It's the too often forgotten about bee.

Well, the fact of the matter is that nearly 1/2 of the entire bee population has been estimated to have died.  Here is a brief video that you can view showing some of the problems we all face.

As you can imagine, the problem that we face is more than just a few farmers that raise bees for honey.

Bees are one of the major participants in reproduction of other plant life, including the food that we eat!

At this point it would be virtually impossible to replace what the bee does for agriculture and other plant life.

According to the online publication Sciencedaily, published on June 11, 2008,

Scientists have discovered that there are more bee species than previously thought. In the first global accounting of bee species in over a hundred years, John S. Ascher, a research scientist in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, compiled online species pages and distribution maps for more than 19,200 described bee species, showcasing the diversity of these essential pollinators. This new species inventory documents 2,000 more described, valid species than estimated by Charles Michener in the first edition of his definitive The Bees of the World published eight years ago.

Related information:

To keep up on the latest news about colony collapse disorder, read The Beekeeper, an exclusive blog for The Daily Green by Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine. Here's a list of his most recent posts: Colony Collapse Disorder — The Facts

May 8 Do Bees Matter? Well, Only If you Think Food Matters

May 11 Scientists Study New Pesticide In Bee Death Investigation 

May 15 One Expert's Long View: There Is No Bee Crisis

May 15 Questions About Chinese Honey

May 17 A Novel Idea For the Yard: Leave It Alone

May 21 To Understand Colony Collapse Disorder, Start With A Census - Part I

May 29 To Understand Colony Collapse Disorder, Start With A Census - Part II

May 29 The Many — And I Mean Many — Suspects Of CCD

June 1 Crops Get By With Fewer Bees

June 4 Summer Brings Good Health To The Hives

June 12 Related Stories Sneak Peak: Many Causes To Bee Decline