Honey bees, wild bees, and other pollinators face a nexus of severe threats: Habitat loss and degradation, toxic insecticides, pests and pathogens, climate change, and the monoculture crop system have all been identified as factors in their decline.

In the mid-2000s, industrial and backyard beekeepers started to notice an alarming and mysterious disappearance of worker bees, dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder, and they have suffered significant annual and over-winter hive losses ever since.

Scientists have been working to understand and reverse the phenomenon. While no single culprit has been identified, it is clear that we can do a number of useful things to maintain bee health. New York Bee Sanctuary was founded to spread knowledge of this crisis and work toward its solution.

HEADER IMAGE by András Bögöly (CC).