0:00:02 > 0:00:04BUZZING
0:00:12 > 0:00:14The buzzing of bees.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16It's one of the great sounds of summer.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19But they're not just making honey.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21Darting from flower to flower,
0:00:21 > 0:00:25they're working to keep the whole eco system in order.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29The real gift from bees was
0:00:29 > 0:00:33completely unknown about for most of human history, which is pollination.
0:00:33 > 0:00:38Pollination is the fertilising of flowering plants that allows them
0:00:38 > 0:00:41to produce fruits, nuts and vegetables.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44A lot of people don't realise that one out of every three
0:00:44 > 0:00:50bites of food they stick in their mouth, these honey bees put on their dinner table.
0:00:50 > 0:00:56Without the tireless work of bees our food production would collapse.
0:00:56 > 0:01:02And we may be on the brink of that catastrophe right now.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06Across the world, our bees are dying.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11Well, they were fine until about the last week in May and then
0:01:11 > 0:01:14they started dying and we ended up with bucketfuls of dead bees.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19In less than four years we lost 800,000 hives in the United States.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22That's one third of bees in the United States.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26In the UK last year we lost nearly a third of our bees.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28CHANTING
0:01:28 > 0:01:33In the US and across Europe, the problem's even worse.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40What's causing this global environmental catastrophe?
0:02:02 > 0:02:04I've kept bees for seven years,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07and as summer ends I've got a real anxiety about my colony.
0:02:07 > 0:02:12Winter is when hives are most under threat, so it's vital that the bees
0:02:12 > 0:02:17are in good shape, free from disease and boosted with extra food.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22I'm very worried putting them away this winter because
0:02:22 > 0:02:24you know, you read in the papers,
0:02:24 > 0:02:28I think something like 40% of hives have died out so that's a really
0:02:28 > 0:02:32high percentage, and if you only have one real hive, like I do,
0:02:32 > 0:02:34then it's a very worrying thing.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37You feel you've done everything possible.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39I've fed them. I've treated them,
0:02:39 > 0:02:44but it is an anxious time because you don't know whether they're going to survive.
0:02:44 > 0:02:51'I'm really frightened that when I open up the hive in the spring I'll find a pile of dead bees.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53'Once my hive was closed up,
0:02:53 > 0:02:59'I started to wonder why bees were dying in such incredible numbers -
0:02:59 > 0:03:01'why now? Why everywhere at the same time?
0:03:01 > 0:03:04'Was it a coincidence?
0:03:06 > 0:03:10'What I'd discover was a hugely complex story.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14'The reason why bees are in such crisis is intricately tied
0:03:14 > 0:03:16'to the way we've changed our planet.'
0:03:23 > 0:03:27There are numerous species of bees on the planet, but the one I'm
0:03:27 > 0:03:32concerned with is Apis Mellifera, or the European honey bee.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41It's established itself as the number one
0:03:41 > 0:03:46pollinator of fruits and vegetables, working to produce over 90 crops.
0:03:49 > 0:03:56Apples, pears, berries, nuts, rapeseed, cauliflower, onions,
0:03:56 > 0:04:02carrots, plums, and even cotton are produced thanks to the honey bee.
0:04:03 > 0:04:09In the UK, the value of pollination is over £190 million.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13In the US, it's 60 times that.
0:04:14 > 0:04:19Pollination is basically how plants have sex.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Flowers are these gaudy billboards that are saying
0:04:21 > 0:04:24"come to me and here's a reward of nectar and pollen".
0:04:24 > 0:04:29And then the bee comes in, picks up some pollen, visits the next flower
0:04:29 > 0:04:30and drops off that pollen.
0:04:30 > 0:04:36Without bees taking pollen from one apple tree to another apple tree,
0:04:36 > 0:04:39you wouldn't get any apples.
0:04:39 > 0:04:44Today, honey bees account for 80% of insect pollination.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49But 100 years ago, the countryside would have been
0:04:49 > 0:04:55abuzz with plenty of wild bees and other pollinating insects.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59As farming practices have changed, these have been largely eradicated.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06By devoting vast swathes of countryside to single crops,
0:05:06 > 0:05:11chopping down the hedgerows and dousing the ground with pesticides,
0:05:11 > 0:05:15the habitat for wild pollinators has been destroyed.
0:05:15 > 0:05:21So humanity has come to rely on the colonies reared and kept alive by beekeepers.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23What have you got?
0:05:25 > 0:05:30Without them and their honey bees, these foods would be threatened.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34And nowhere is this reliance more pronounced
0:05:34 > 0:05:39than in the USA, where hives are transported across the continent
0:05:39 > 0:05:42to pollinate the nation's crops.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48And it was here that the first warnings emerged that there
0:05:48 > 0:05:52was something terribly wrong with the honey bee.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02Dave Hackenberg and his son make their living
0:06:02 > 0:06:04hiring out hives to farmers.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08Our business is going up and down the east coast pollinating
0:06:08 > 0:06:13apples and blueberries and vegetables and cantaloupes
0:06:13 > 0:06:15and pumpkins and all them things.
0:06:15 > 0:06:20Most of our bees will get rented this summer two times and some of them
0:06:20 > 0:06:22even three times on different crops.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26What we're doing is we're going through these bees
0:06:26 > 0:06:29and getting them ready to go to California.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31We've got to get them all over on clean pallets
0:06:31 > 0:06:34and making sure they're all good-looking beehives.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38Evening up the populations of the ones that don't got.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45It was in the autumn of 2006
0:06:45 > 0:06:50that Hackenberg began to notice a serious problem with his bees.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53At a time when they should have been full of life,
0:06:53 > 0:06:55they were going missing.
0:06:55 > 0:06:59Here's the beehive these bee scientists found couple of days ago.
0:06:59 > 0:07:04It was full of bees. Three hours later...nobody home.
0:07:04 > 0:07:09Empty box. The bees just disappeared.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14They just...took off.
0:07:18 > 0:07:23Looking inside the boxes, he could find only a handful of bees.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28The rest had literally vanished.
0:07:32 > 0:07:38Within a couple of weeks, he lost 360 out of 400 hives.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44- Need a frame anywhere? Need a frame?- Do I need one?
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Now you go in a hive and it's a depressing sight.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Oh, we had 80% in one load. Every time you go in the yard you're
0:07:53 > 0:07:57picking up two on every pallet, you're down to one on a pallet.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00And the next time you go through that one's dead.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02Adding to the mystery,
0:08:02 > 0:08:06other bees gave the vanished hives a wide berth.
0:08:06 > 0:08:11Normally when a hive of bees is dead first thing that happens, the other bees come in and rob it out.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16But the thing that we seen here stands 400 hives of bees, boxes
0:08:16 > 0:08:19- full of honey.- Brand new queens.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22Brand new queens and yet the boxes are full of honey and 100 yards away
0:08:22 > 0:08:26sits another yard of bees that won't even look at this stuff.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30So something weird is going on here.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Unable to explain the mysterious vanishings,
0:08:33 > 0:08:37he called in the State bee inspector, Dennis vanEnglesdorp.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54Going through the hives, vanEnglesdorp was at a loss
0:08:54 > 0:08:56to explain what had happened.
0:09:00 > 0:09:01Wow, that one's gone.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05Yeah, some of these were pretty close to collapse.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13He's been going through and culling colonies that are weak, trying to
0:09:13 > 0:09:16pick out the ones that are good for moving to California.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20So these are either dead colonies or colonies that were too weak.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24You can see he's lost an awful lot of colonies in this particular yard.
0:09:24 > 0:09:25So he's stacking them up
0:09:25 > 0:09:29and he's going to have those eradiated so he'll bring them down
0:09:29 > 0:09:32to the radiation plant and sterilise the equipment
0:09:32 > 0:09:34before he puts more bees on.
0:09:36 > 0:09:42VanEnglesdorp rapidly came to realise that the Hackenbergs weren't an isolated case.
0:09:42 > 0:09:49Two weeks ago I got a call, a guy, 14 days before had fantastic bees.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53He calls, he has 200 left of 2,000 nine days later.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55So I mean, how do you keep track of that?
0:09:55 > 0:10:00And Hackenberg too was hearing rumours.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02It's kind of a phenomena thing, you know?
0:10:02 > 0:10:05But it's happened all over the country.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08It's happened probably while we're standing here talking.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10I mean, every day the phone rings, you know,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13with more and more guys losing bees. Huge numbers of them.
0:10:13 > 0:10:18One guy told me last night if we don't figure this thing out in four to five years there won't
0:10:18 > 0:10:22be any beekeepers left in the United States, cos we just can't afford it.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26I mean, look at that empty stuff stacked up and the dead ones sitting around here.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30We just can't keep going.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36Many of the beekeepers that American farmers relied on
0:10:36 > 0:10:40were reporting losses of up to 90% of their hives.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48What was happening to America's bees?
0:10:53 > 0:10:57A team of scientists began taking information from beekeepers across
0:10:57 > 0:11:00the country and came up with a list of symptoms
0:11:00 > 0:11:05to describe what they called colony collapse disorder.
0:11:07 > 0:11:09The queen is usually still present.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13There's still honey and pollen that hasn't been robbed out
0:11:13 > 0:11:15and to me the most defining character is you've
0:11:15 > 0:11:19got low adult bee population and yet there's still an abundance of brood -
0:11:19 > 0:11:22developing bees that are present in the combs in those colonies.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27That indicates that the colony was very strong shortly before it collapsed.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32But in trying to identify a cause, there was a problem.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37With colony collapse disorder they're dying away from the colony and we're not detecting them.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40They're not, they're not congregating anywhere.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43They're not accumulating anywhere that we can find.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47So when we come after the collapse, in fact it's very difficult.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51You're sampling just the survivors - what happened to the ones that died?
0:11:51 > 0:11:53We don't have those corpses available to look at.
0:11:53 > 0:11:58They began dissecting the samples they could collect
0:11:58 > 0:12:03in search of a disease that could explain the vanishings.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07But initially they drew a blank and until they could discover a
0:12:07 > 0:12:11cause, there was no way of stopping it spreading.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24In the heat of the crisis, America's biggest beekeeper, Bret Adee,
0:12:24 > 0:12:26was taking no chances.
0:12:26 > 0:12:32He was moving his hives away from other populations to keep them safe.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36As of yet we haven't seen any of the colony collapse
0:12:36 > 0:12:38showing up in our bees.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43Last year, the colony collapse disorder seemed to...
0:12:43 > 0:12:46show itself mostly during the dormant season,
0:12:46 > 0:12:48and that's what we're entering in
0:12:48 > 0:12:52right now, is when the bees start to go dormant as the temperatures drop.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55It wasn't just temperature that worried Bret Adee.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59By putting his 70,000 hives in an isolated valley,
0:12:59 > 0:13:03he could protect them from other potentially diseased bees.
0:13:05 > 0:13:10We're setting it out on the ranches here in California so they don't have
0:13:10 > 0:13:15to be exposed to the Arctic up in South Dakota and North Dakota.
0:13:15 > 0:13:20With the winter coming, Bret was also boosting his bees
0:13:20 > 0:13:23with sugar solution and other nutrients.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26I'm a big believer in proteins. Like having a balanced diet
0:13:26 > 0:13:31will keep a person healthy, I think the same is very critical for bees.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34I don't wanna lose any bees.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38That's why we're trying to keep the stress levels down to a minimum, by
0:13:38 > 0:13:41making sure they have all kinds of carbohydrates, they have all kinds
0:13:41 > 0:13:47of protein, so if there were any stresses they would be in a healthy enough position to overcome it.
0:13:52 > 0:13:58Meanwhile, scientists continued to analyse samples from collapsed colonies.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08Researchers identified a pathogen present
0:14:08 > 0:14:11in over 96% of vanished hives.
0:14:13 > 0:14:19It was called Israeli acute paralysis virus.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23But could it explain the vanishings?
0:14:25 > 0:14:29What was strange was that the virus was also present
0:14:29 > 0:14:32in some healthy bee colonies.
0:14:34 > 0:14:40The same was true of another disease found in the dead bees, known as nosema.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48Like human beings, bees can carry within them
0:14:48 > 0:14:52a number of viruses and other diseases without causing illness.
0:14:52 > 0:14:58However, just like humans, already weak bees are more susceptible
0:14:58 > 0:15:00to infections that can kill.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03What I'm assuming is happening
0:15:03 > 0:15:07is that these bees are becoming weak for some reason and nosema
0:15:07 > 0:15:08is one of those things like viruses
0:15:08 > 0:15:12that can then take off and take advantage of a weakened host.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16And that's I think where we need to find the stress factor, whatever it
0:15:16 > 0:15:23is, that's going on that's allowing, in some cases, viruses to take off and kill bees.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28So what was making these widespread diseases become so fatal?
0:15:28 > 0:15:33What was it in the environment that was causing bees to become weakened?
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Could it be the very way that hives were being kept?
0:15:41 > 0:15:46# Dear, I fear we're facing a problem
0:15:46 > 0:15:49# You love me no longer... #
0:15:49 > 0:15:51Bees have been put under stress
0:15:51 > 0:15:54by man for as long as we found a way to exploit them.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00And many of the bees' problems seem to stem from this.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04There's a whole mythology of how wonderfully selfless the bees are.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06There's this phrase non nobis - they work but not for themselves,
0:16:06 > 0:16:11and that's a very convenient way of getting round the fact that
0:16:11 > 0:16:12for most of human history,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14we have stolen from the bees,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17we have robbed them of their honey
0:16:17 > 0:16:19and then we've killed them every year.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27And if you think of the classical skep beehive,
0:16:27 > 0:16:32which is the kind of Winnie the Pooh cuddly hive that most of us picture,
0:16:32 > 0:16:36if we think of a beehive, it wasn't so cute and cuddly for the bees.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40It was really effectively like a kind of mausoleum,
0:16:40 > 0:16:42because for most beekeepers
0:16:42 > 0:16:46they couldn't figure out any way of harvesting the honey other than
0:16:46 > 0:16:52poisoning the bees en masse, killing them all, and then taking the honey.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57That's how our forefathers often gathered honey, by killing bees.
0:16:57 > 0:16:59It was only in the mid 19th century,
0:16:59 > 0:17:04when a brilliant clergyman, who was also a beekeeper, called Langstroff
0:17:04 > 0:17:10discovered this concept of bee space, which was exactly the amount of space
0:17:10 > 0:17:12you needed to leave in a hive which
0:17:12 > 0:17:16would ensure that you could remove a frame of honeycomb
0:17:16 > 0:17:19without the bees filling up the space with bee glue
0:17:19 > 0:17:20and building more honeycomb, that
0:17:20 > 0:17:25you could consistently harvest honey without having to kill all the bees.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29So Langstroff had found a way to keep bees alive and farmed,
0:17:29 > 0:17:32but there was an additional benefit.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35These new hives were easily portable.
0:17:35 > 0:17:37They could be stacked on trucks
0:17:37 > 0:17:40and moved around to meet the demands of pollination.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44So farmers no longer needed wild bees to pollinate their crops.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49They could clear land into massive fields where native bees struggled to survive.
0:18:09 > 0:18:15Nowhere more greatly symbolises the dominance of mono cultures than the
0:18:15 > 0:18:17almond orchards of California's Central Valley.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21The almond crop in California wouldn't happen without bees.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23I mean, it takes three things to make almonds.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27First you gotta have almond trees - but that's four things I guess.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30You gotta have almond trees, but you gotta have water, sunlight and bees.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38More than a million hives are required to be brought
0:18:38 > 0:18:43into this 600,000 hectare area in the first weeks of February.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48That's 80% of the hives in the US.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55One time, mostly California bees pollinated the almonds and
0:18:55 > 0:18:59then bees from Dakota and so on moved down as the almond crop grew,
0:18:59 > 0:19:01you know, it took more bees.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04And now with, you know, the disappearance of the bees from CCD,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08Bees are coming from all over the United States to pollinate the crop.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18With hives renting out at over 150 a week, it's a vital
0:19:18 > 0:19:23revenue stream to beekeepers who congregate from across the nation.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26Beekeepers here - 90% of their income is the almond crop.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28So if that's what you're relying on
0:19:28 > 0:19:31every year and you don't have the bees to do the pollination job,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34I don't know how they're gonna survive the next year.
0:19:39 > 0:19:45But being shipped from place to place isn't a natural existence for bees.
0:19:45 > 0:19:50The stresses that bees are under in a commercial outfit are different
0:19:50 > 0:19:53than having a couple of hives in your backyard,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57or even a commercial outfit that's permanently based.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02Dave Mendes runs a large operation with over 8,000 beehives.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11Although Dave is based in Florida,
0:20:11 > 0:20:17his bees are being readied for a 3,000 mile trip to California
0:20:17 > 0:20:20for almond pollination.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23I am not excited about shipping my bees to California.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25I'm doing this to survive.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28Even though his bees are dying and he knows
0:20:28 > 0:20:32that trucking could be dangerous for them, with his business threatened,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35Dave has no choice but to carry on.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39We're spending a whole pile of money to try to figure out
0:20:39 > 0:20:43how to keep these bees alive. I've tripled my feed bill.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46I've more than doubled my labour bill.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48You do everything you can.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51One third of your bees respond really well.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54One third of your bees are OK.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58One third of your bees just lay there and dwindle and
0:20:58 > 0:21:02sometimes you just wanna shake them and try to figure out what's wrong.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08Across the year, Dave's bees travel thousands of miles
0:21:08 > 0:21:11to meet the demands of different crops.
0:21:16 > 0:21:21Could this mass movement be a factor in the hive deaths?
0:21:25 > 0:21:29You can move healthy bee colonies around. No problem. No problem.
0:21:29 > 0:21:31It's a bit like moving humans around.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34You get there and you spend half a day orienting. Where am I?
0:21:34 > 0:21:37And then you're fine. And bees are like that too.
0:21:37 > 0:21:42They're resilient. They really are. But if they're a little bit compromised by something and you
0:21:42 > 0:21:45move them to a location and say, "OK, time to work, and they're, "Wo-ah!".
0:21:45 > 0:21:47You know? Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53We loaded some trucks last night and then looking at the weather,
0:21:53 > 0:21:54and it's going to be hot.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59If you hit hot weather you're going to need to water the bees in the evening.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02If you hit cool weather then you don't.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06If you're thirsty, so are the bees riding on the back of the truck there.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13The problem with blaming trucking is that it's been going on for
0:22:13 > 0:22:17over 40 years without obviously affecting bees.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20Though nowadays hives are moved more often.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25There's always been a group of people that say, yeah, those commercial guys
0:22:25 > 0:22:29that move their bees around - they're ruining the bees in the United States.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31Well, they're also pollinating
0:22:31 > 0:22:34the fruits and vegetables that we need for the United States.
0:22:38 > 0:22:40Every 18 inches is fine.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44And these beekeepers really care for their bees.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46I know they're bugs.
0:22:46 > 0:22:53I know they're insects. But if your job is to keep bees alive and
0:22:53 > 0:22:57you can't do that for whatever reason, and you can't even
0:22:57 > 0:23:01know why they're dying, you feel like a failure.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07The highest losses are reported by the big commercial beekeepers
0:23:07 > 0:23:09who move their bees around.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15But then, they also had the highest number of hives.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19Studies showed no clear link between the husbandry of individual
0:23:19 > 0:23:24beekeepers and the likelihood that their colonies would be blighted.
0:23:35 > 0:23:41As Dave's bees headed to California, Bret Adee, who'd taken his bees west
0:23:41 > 0:23:46months earlier, was discovering a vanishing of staggering proportions.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02I seen one hive sitting there.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05Don't know if there's any bees left in it.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08I don't know if there's anything here or not.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10Just a little drizzle.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12Few bees there.
0:24:14 > 0:24:16They're not enough.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18They're not viable.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21No. They're gone. They're just...
0:24:21 > 0:24:24They just don't know it yet. There's like six bees there.
0:24:24 > 0:24:25There's no queen.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27So...
0:24:27 > 0:24:34In less than two months, Bret Adee had lost perhaps 200 million bees.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37We came back in January after Christmas break and
0:24:37 > 0:24:41we had beehives that looked beautiful and ones that were trash.
0:24:41 > 0:24:47You know, we originally thought we were limited to a third, but it's been much worse than that.
0:24:47 > 0:24:52And this was after Adee had gone to extraordinary lengths to protect his bees.
0:24:52 > 0:24:54They had all kinds of stores.
0:24:54 > 0:24:59They had honey. They had pollen. We supplemented them with sugar.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01We supplemented them with pollen substitute.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05And they were beautiful bees until it turned cold.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09I've talked to guys that have lost three quarters of their operation,
0:25:09 > 0:25:13and one man that lost over 80% of his operation.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16Those aren't sustainable numbers. You know?
0:25:16 > 0:25:22We've got to either get to the end of this, or beekeeping won't be the same in the United States.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26We can't afford to lose those kind of numbers continually.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30Arriving for the almonds, beekeepers Dave Mendes and
0:25:30 > 0:25:38Dave Hackenberg caught wind of the massive disappearance and rushed to see the thousands of wrecked hives.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41It keeps going.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43All the way up into the hills.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45Every semi spot.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57If he's not upset, there's something wrong here.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59In the back of your mind,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02you think you have an idea what this looks like.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04You can't. You can't imagine this.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07It's like the pictures of the holocaust.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10This is a bee holocaust right here.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12All the way up that valley.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16This whole thing doesn't make any sense
0:26:16 > 0:26:21and if you don't see it yourself, it's monsters in the closet.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27When the bees are dead, you're kind of seeing the end product of it but
0:26:27 > 0:26:32how you got from the beginning to the end is still very unclear
0:26:32 > 0:26:35for all of us. I just wanna see if there's...
0:26:35 > 0:26:37This is what's disturbing.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40There should be dead... You see, this many hives,
0:26:40 > 0:26:44that's not enough dead bees here for this many hives.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47There are flowers here. You should have... There's flowers.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52Well, it's not enough. There is not enough dead bees here.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56So what was causing these mass vanishings?
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Why had bees left the hive and not returned?
0:27:00 > 0:27:03It seemed not to be just a virus.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05It wasn't just stress from trucking.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08There had to be another factor.
0:27:08 > 0:27:14Some beekeepers began to point the finger at an old foe - pesticides.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20# Please don't go crazy if I tell you the truth
0:27:20 > 0:27:25# No, you don't know what happened and you never will... #
0:27:25 > 0:27:29It's partly due to pesticides that we've been able to develop
0:27:29 > 0:27:32large mono cultures, because without them
0:27:32 > 0:27:35vast areas dominated by a single crop
0:27:35 > 0:27:38would quickly become blighted by the bugs that feed on them.
0:27:38 > 0:27:43Pesticides are, by their very nature, killers.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48Early pesticides like DDT killed pretty indiscriminately
0:27:48 > 0:27:51and this had a devastating effect on wild bees.
0:27:51 > 0:27:56However, more modern chemicals have been designed to target
0:27:56 > 0:27:59specific plants and specific pests.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01That's the theory at least.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07# ..It's hardly what I'd be doing if you gave me a choice
0:28:07 > 0:28:11# It's a simple suggestion
0:28:11 > 0:28:13# Can you give me some time?
0:28:13 > 0:28:19# So just say yes or no Why can't you shoulder the blame? #
0:28:19 > 0:28:24Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald has battled for a greater understanding
0:28:24 > 0:28:29of the impact of these chemicals on bee health for many years.
0:28:30 > 0:28:36As his bees began to die, he became convinced of a connection.
0:28:36 > 0:28:41I'm not an extremist. I understand that pesticides are gonna be used,
0:28:41 > 0:28:44but I think they need to be used with care and good judgement.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48And we have some very simple laws that would encourage that kind of
0:28:48 > 0:28:51usage, but they're routinely ignored
0:28:51 > 0:28:56and disregarded and as a consequence there's enormous damage that's being
0:28:56 > 0:28:58produced by pesticide usage.
0:28:58 > 0:29:04This is the yard where I had the highest winter losses. 80%.
0:29:04 > 0:29:06Ten out of 12 didn't make it.
0:29:07 > 0:29:13So I'm trying to rebuild the numbers and there probably won't be a hundred crop from this bunch.
0:29:13 > 0:29:19I'm concerned that we may be seeing some very subtle consequences of this
0:29:19 > 0:29:22chemical environment that we've been forced to live in.
0:29:23 > 0:29:29Pesticides weren't meant to kill bees but hives left in fields were
0:29:29 > 0:29:33often caught in the crossfire of the battle between farmers and bugs.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40When crops were sprayed, beekeepers would try to ensure that
0:29:40 > 0:29:43their bees were safe from harm by removing hives.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47But as more sophisticated chemicals have developed, it's become perhaps
0:29:47 > 0:29:50harder to assess when they might be in danger.
0:29:50 > 0:29:58What has happened, I think, is that we've had new pesticides that have appeared on the market
0:29:58 > 0:30:00that haven't been properly evaluated
0:30:00 > 0:30:04independently to determine what impact they have on the bees.
0:30:07 > 0:30:09Early generations of pesticides
0:30:09 > 0:30:12would be sprayed directly onto crops.
0:30:12 > 0:30:16But newer ones, known as systemic, are applied to seeds
0:30:16 > 0:30:20and so distributed throughout the plant as it grows.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26The fear is that bees are being affected
0:30:26 > 0:30:31by feeding on nectar and pollen tainted by these new pesticides.
0:30:31 > 0:30:34Tom and other beekeepers in America
0:30:34 > 0:30:37began to question the widespread use of chemicals
0:30:37 > 0:30:41including imidachloprid, sometimes known as gaucho.
0:30:43 > 0:30:47The theory was that these chemicals may affect the brains
0:30:47 > 0:30:53of growing bees, stopping them from being able to find their way home.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57Because a single bee can visit over 1,000 flowers in a single day,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01their navigation system is particularly sophisticated.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05In fact, it's even said that bees can talk.
0:31:05 > 0:31:10When a bee finds a good flower source it returns to its hive,
0:31:10 > 0:31:13and performs what's known as "the waggle dance" -
0:31:13 > 0:31:18a complicated manoeuvre which indicates the distance and direction of the food.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21Other members of the hive can read this dance
0:31:21 > 0:31:23and then find the nectar source.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26The problem is getting back again.
0:31:26 > 0:31:32The question is whether low level or sub-lethal doses of pesticides
0:31:32 > 0:31:35are hindering the bees homing instinct.
0:31:35 > 0:31:41France went through problems very similar to what we're talking about now, the colony collapse disorder
0:31:41 > 0:31:44or the disappearance of bees, and they believe that...
0:31:44 > 0:31:49imidachloprid, gaucho, was causing disorientation in the bees.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52They would leave and be unable to find their way back.
0:31:52 > 0:31:54It interfered with their navigational ability.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00And France banned gaucho.
0:32:00 > 0:32:04France suspended the use of the chemical on sunflowers
0:32:04 > 0:32:09way back in 1999, when beehives fell by a third to a million.
0:32:09 > 0:32:14But the chemical is still widely used elsewhere in Europe and in the US.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17THEY SPEAK FRENCH:
0:32:29 > 0:32:31However, the producers of gaucho
0:32:31 > 0:32:33say that studies prove that imidachloprid is
0:32:33 > 0:32:38completely safe for bees and point to independent research
0:32:38 > 0:32:42that suggests the problems experienced with French bees may have different causes.
0:32:42 > 0:32:47Indeed, since the ban, French hives have continued to decline in number.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54In the US, scientists at Penn State are looking into the link between
0:32:54 > 0:32:57pesticides and colony collapse disorder
0:32:57 > 0:33:00and they've stumbled on a whole new issue -
0:33:00 > 0:33:06that bees are at risk from not one pesticide, but a whole cocktail.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10Samples were collected from a number of different beekeepers, some of whom
0:33:10 > 0:33:13had experienced CCD and some of whom had not.
0:33:13 > 0:33:19And from that we found an incredible amount of pesticides.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23They found evidence of the systemic pesticide imidachloprid that
0:33:23 > 0:33:27beekeepers believed were causing the bees to vanish.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31We did have a concern particularly about systemic pesticides.
0:33:31 > 0:33:38However, in our results, we have found pesticides in every class.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41In every class of pesticides
0:33:41 > 0:33:44that are currently being used, we have found.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48So we've found insecticides, fungicides and herbicides.
0:33:48 > 0:33:54In just one bee, Maryann found 25 different agro chemicals.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57To us, this begs the question,
0:33:57 > 0:34:01what are these pesticides in combination doing?
0:34:01 > 0:34:04We all know that when we go to the pharmacist the first thing
0:34:04 > 0:34:08they wanna know is what other prescriptions are you taking,
0:34:08 > 0:34:13because they're concerned about the potential interaction of compounds.
0:34:13 > 0:34:18The challenge of isolating the effects of a single pesticide was now much harder.
0:34:20 > 0:34:24The reason why it's so complicated is that we can't just look
0:34:24 > 0:34:26at adult bees any more.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29We have to ask the question, what happened when this bee was a larvae?
0:34:29 > 0:34:32When it was a baby bee? And what pesticide did it get?
0:34:32 > 0:34:36And how is that affecting it now as an adult bee?
0:34:36 > 0:34:40Is it interfering with the bee's longevity? Is it shortening its life?
0:34:40 > 0:34:45Is it affecting its immune system?
0:34:46 > 0:34:52The horrific thought is that not one pesticide, but the whole toxic soup
0:34:52 > 0:34:56might be having a long-term effect to push bees over the edge.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16It's not just in America and France that beekeepers are
0:35:16 > 0:35:18reporting problems with pesticides.
0:35:18 > 0:35:24In the UK too, bees are struggling to cope in the changed rural environment.
0:35:24 > 0:35:29We've been having big bee losses since 2002.
0:35:29 > 0:35:34When we brought bees back from pollination we had them all looked at and inspected
0:35:34 > 0:35:39and two weeks later they started dying, and we ended up with just
0:35:39 > 0:35:41bucketfuls of dead bees everywhere.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44Hundreds of thousands of dead bees.
0:35:44 > 0:35:50Though his bees weren't vanishing, they were dying in front of the hives.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54If it's one of the recognised diseases, then
0:35:54 > 0:35:58you know what it is and hopefully you can take some action.
0:35:58 > 0:36:04In this scenario, you have you have no recourse to
0:36:04 > 0:36:07do anything. Absolutely zilch.
0:36:07 > 0:36:14You've just got to stand by and watch them die and when it's your livelihood, that's pretty tough.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22Mike knew his bees were struggling because of the lack of wild
0:36:22 > 0:36:27plants to feed on, but what's startling is the difference he saw
0:36:27 > 0:36:30when hives were put in farmland.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34We had one load of bees that came back from pollination
0:36:34 > 0:36:40that had all been together, from April going back to October.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43When they came back from pollination they were split three ways.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46One third went into a wood.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Two hundred acres predominately of lime trees,
0:36:49 > 0:36:51and no bees died there at all.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53And on the other two sites, which
0:36:53 > 0:36:57are in intensive agricultural areas, that's where the colonies collapsed.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01Something triggered the bees to collapse on those two sites.
0:37:01 > 0:37:09It must be connected with the agricultural crops and the sprays and the seed treatments.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12I mean, there is no other explanation.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17But Mike's never been able to prove a pesticide connection.
0:37:17 > 0:37:24However, he's not the only British beekeeper suffering massive losses.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28In the spring of 2008, there were horrific sights across the country
0:37:28 > 0:37:30when hives were opened up.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34Nearly a third of Britain's bees had been wiped out,
0:37:34 > 0:37:39but in a perhaps surprising place, one man's bees are thriving.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42MUSIC: "London Calling" by The Clash
0:37:59 > 0:38:01I'm an urban beekeeper.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04That means I keep my bees within urban areas,
0:38:04 > 0:38:05i.e. - the City of London.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10I've got beehives in south London, Brixton, right through
0:38:10 > 0:38:13to on an industrial estate up in King's Cross.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16My bee losses have been no higher in the last few years
0:38:16 > 0:38:19than I've ever had in any winter and in fact lower last winter
0:38:19 > 0:38:20than ever before.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24Ironically in the city, there seems to be more food
0:38:24 > 0:38:28and perhaps cleaner food for bees to eat.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31London and a lot of urban environments are quite green.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34When you look, you see parks, small gardens dotted everywhere.
0:38:34 > 0:38:38The beautiful thing about keeping bees in an urban environment
0:38:38 > 0:38:40is the diversity of plants.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43There's usually something in bloom all year round.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47In the countryside, especially with modern agricultural practices,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50you have great swathes of land which are just supporting one crop.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54So that might bloom for two, three weeks but then there'll be nothing.
0:38:56 > 0:39:01So I think the city is probably one of the best places to be keeping bees at the moment.
0:39:01 > 0:39:06There's plenty of forage for them and you don't have all the problems you have in the countryside
0:39:06 > 0:39:09with insecticides and pesticides being sprayed.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15There you go. See you again in a few weeks, girls.
0:39:17 > 0:39:24So are pesticides the explanation of why British bees were suddenly dying in such huge numbers?
0:39:24 > 0:39:28If only it were that simple.
0:39:31 > 0:39:33At the National Bee Unit in York,
0:39:33 > 0:39:38government experts are looking into the problem of honey bee deaths.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42We've been getting reports through our own inspectors
0:39:42 > 0:39:46and from the beekeepers that there's an increased loss of bees.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50Why that is happening is more difficult to pin down.
0:39:53 > 0:39:59One cause they feel is a factor is perhaps the biggest global problem of all - climate change.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04Climate change is changing weather patterns.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07It's not just about global warming.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10It's about weather being unseasonal.
0:40:10 > 0:40:14If it's very windy or very wet or even snowing out there,
0:40:14 > 0:40:16pollinators will not forage.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20They will stay in their hives and that's meant that honey bees
0:40:20 > 0:40:23have gone into the winter with poor stocks of food.
0:40:25 > 0:40:30But it has to be more than bad weather which is causing British bees to die.
0:40:30 > 0:40:35As elsewhere, viruses are being spread at an alarming rate.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37THUNDER CRACKS
0:40:37 > 0:40:42The reason lurks in beehives across the country, and is,
0:40:42 > 0:40:47according to experts, the main cause of bee deaths around the world.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51It's an old enemy of the honey bee and a known killer.
0:40:51 > 0:40:53The Varroa mite.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56MUSIC: "Creep" by Radiohead
0:41:02 > 0:41:06The Varroa mite is a really very large parasite,
0:41:06 > 0:41:10so in relation to the size of the bee it's a thing sort of this big
0:41:10 > 0:41:15and it can transmit virus diseases that you normally find
0:41:15 > 0:41:19in adult bees into the larvae and virus diseases that you find
0:41:19 > 0:41:22in the larvae into the adults.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25It's these virus diseases that have become very devastating.
0:41:27 > 0:41:30# ..But I'm a creep... #
0:41:30 > 0:41:35The parasitic Varroa mite was first discovered to have jumped species
0:41:35 > 0:41:39from the Asian honey bee onto the European honey bee
0:41:39 > 0:41:42shortly after the Second World War.
0:41:43 > 0:41:49From Russia in the 1950s through Europe in the 1970s,
0:41:49 > 0:41:55America in the 1980s, Britain in the 1990s, the Varroa mite has spread throughout the world.
0:41:55 > 0:42:00Like fleas on rats, the Varroa carries diseases
0:42:00 > 0:42:02that are fatal to hives.
0:42:02 > 0:42:07Everywhere that Varroa has been found around the world people have reported
0:42:07 > 0:42:12very high losses of their bees and often colonies are wiped out completely.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18Medicines have been developed to kill the parasite,
0:42:18 > 0:42:21but over the last few years, it's become resistant.
0:42:21 > 0:42:26As well as disease, pesticides and climate change,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29it's left beekeepers battling another foe in the war
0:42:29 > 0:42:31to keep honey bees alive.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35The situation we're in now is that we don't have
0:42:35 > 0:42:39an easy control of Varroa any more.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43I'll just get this alight.
0:42:43 > 0:42:49The new super parasite is devastating colonies.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52Beekeepers are forced to resort to homemade remedies.
0:42:55 > 0:43:01We'll just pick a hive that hopefully is not going to be too stroppy when I take the top off.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06So 50ml in a syringe
0:43:06 > 0:43:10because this stuff should have been a bit warmer than this.
0:43:10 > 0:43:17This is syrup solution with 3.5% oxalic acid in.
0:43:17 > 0:43:22They will eat that and the acid will hopefully
0:43:22 > 0:43:26be enough to cause the mites to drop off the bee.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29Worker bee lasts six weeks in the summer.
0:43:29 > 0:43:37In the winter time they will survive from say October through until March-April time,
0:43:37 > 0:43:38if you've got good healthy bees.
0:43:38 > 0:43:43If you haven't got healthy bees then you'll find they're all dead by the spring.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45They're like my children.
0:43:45 > 0:43:47That's how you feel about it.
0:43:47 > 0:43:53And not knowing that there's anything you can do just makes it worse.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00It was a seemingly endless battle for beekeepers just to stay in business.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02What they needed was solutions,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06so they decided to take their issues to the seat of government.
0:44:10 > 0:44:15CROWD CHANTS: Save our bees! Save our bees!
0:44:15 > 0:44:21In November 2008, several hundred beekeepers marched on Parliament.
0:44:22 > 0:44:25I run 20 colonies.
0:44:25 > 0:44:2720 colonies. Yes.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29I've got two. I'm a beginner.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33I've been keeping bees for over 40 years now
0:44:33 > 0:44:40and certainly the health of bees now is at a greater risk than it has been in the past.
0:44:40 > 0:44:45They talked of numerous types of deaths, some from known causes,
0:44:45 > 0:44:49others more mysterious. Several even reported the vanishing phenomenon.
0:44:49 > 0:44:51SHOUTS: Save our British bees!
0:44:51 > 0:44:55The bees go into a semi hibernation state during the winter months
0:44:55 > 0:44:57and it isn't until next spring
0:44:57 > 0:45:00that you find there are no bees at all in the colony.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02Absolutely none. Not a single bee.
0:45:02 > 0:45:04They just disappeared.
0:45:04 > 0:45:10Honey bees are extremely important to us all and if we don't sort out the problems of honey bee disease
0:45:10 > 0:45:14in the next few years, it's quite possible that honey bees
0:45:14 > 0:45:15will disappear in the UK.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20I mean you open up a hive with no bees in it, you just stand there speechless.
0:45:20 > 0:45:23You go into an apple orchard and there's apples.
0:45:23 > 0:45:24Take the bees away, no apples.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28You have to remember that bees and plants have evolved together
0:45:28 > 0:45:30over 10-20 million years in the environment
0:45:30 > 0:45:36and that losing one must inevitably affect the efficiency and lifestyle of the other.
0:45:46 > 0:45:54While British beekeepers marched on Parliament, back in the US, bees were continuing to die.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57Keepers were not only suffering vanishings
0:45:57 > 0:46:02but also from the effects of the treatment-resistant Varroa mite.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06There was a real anxiety that there wouldn't be enough bees to pollinate crops.
0:46:08 > 0:46:14So farmers turned to one of the few countries left where bees were thriving -
0:46:14 > 0:46:15Australia.
0:46:15 > 0:46:20MUSIC: "You Stole The Sun" by Manic Street Preachers
0:46:35 > 0:46:36OK, let's get started.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55We're shaking... what we call shaking package bees.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59Packing the bees from the hives into the packages we export them to into the US.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03First of all we have to sort of get a lot of bees from the bottom boxes,
0:47:03 > 0:47:04push them into the top box,
0:47:04 > 0:47:09and then we lift that box off and blow the bees out into shaker boxes.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18Then they are weighed out into funnels
0:47:18 > 0:47:22and then inverted into the packages that we actually export the bees in
0:47:22 > 0:47:25and we can weigh them all exactly the right amount -
0:47:25 > 0:47:30four pounds of bees are going to the US, with a queen bee,
0:47:30 > 0:47:33and five packages go in a rack.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39Unlike every other developed country,
0:47:39 > 0:47:47Australian bees are flourishing, which means there are plenty of healthy bees available for export.
0:47:47 > 0:47:54Australia has so far avoided that scourge of bees everywhere - the Varroa mite.
0:47:54 > 0:47:56But for how long?
0:47:56 > 0:47:59If the mite was to arrive here in Australia it would probably come in
0:47:59 > 0:48:02on, say, a European honey bee from another country,
0:48:02 > 0:48:05cos all other countries have got the mite now.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10So if a bee was to arrive here on a boat it could jump off the boat,
0:48:10 > 0:48:14onto land and then start spreading and introduce the mite.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18If Varroa got here, it would be devastating.
0:48:25 > 0:48:32To protect their bees Australian authorities are spending a fortune on bio security.
0:48:32 > 0:48:37So we have what we call a port surveillance programme in place.
0:48:37 > 0:48:39We have what we call sentinel hives.
0:48:39 > 0:48:41That's our number one defence.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46Hives in strategic places like ports and airports
0:48:46 > 0:48:49are monitored on a three-monthly basis.
0:48:49 > 0:48:51We monitor those hives,
0:48:51 > 0:48:55so we put in chemicals and we check for mite levels, just in case
0:48:55 > 0:48:59a swarm hasn't come off a boat, landed on shore with mites on it.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03If Varroa got here, we would have a shortage of bees.
0:49:03 > 0:49:05So things like exports would be out.
0:49:10 > 0:49:17In the meantime, exporters like Terry Brown are making thousands of dollars exporting live bees.
0:49:40 > 0:49:46The packages are sealed securely so that no bees are left on the outside of the cases.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59Although the passengers are probably unaware of it,
0:49:59 > 0:50:02these packages of live bees are then placed in the hold
0:50:02 > 0:50:07of scheduled aircraft and flown for 14 hours to Los Angeles
0:50:07 > 0:50:10where they can be sent off to the fields
0:50:10 > 0:50:15to pollinate in a foreign, and potentially toxic environment.
0:50:18 > 0:50:22This is clearly an unsustainable way of propping up
0:50:22 > 0:50:25the planet's agricultural system
0:50:25 > 0:50:29and would collapse overnight if Australia's bees
0:50:29 > 0:50:33began to display the problems of those in the rest of the world.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42While Australian bees were crossing the Pacific,
0:50:42 > 0:50:48scientists at the University of Sussex decided to tackle the matter
0:50:48 > 0:50:50by turning it on its head.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52Their thinking is simple -
0:50:52 > 0:50:56as well as focusing on finding the causes of deaths, they're attempting
0:50:56 > 0:51:00to breed bee colonies that are more resistant to disease.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06What we're doing is we're taking our existing British race of the honey bee
0:51:06 > 0:51:09and we're finding which hives are hygienic
0:51:09 > 0:51:10and we're breeding from them.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13So we're breeding, you might say, an improved British bee.
0:51:14 > 0:51:20Inside a hive, bees arrange themselves on a very strict hierarchy.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23The queen is the only bee that lays eggs.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27All the rest are divided into tasks, from the foragers who go out to collect food,
0:51:27 > 0:51:31to the bees that guard the entrance from intruders,
0:51:31 > 0:51:34to others, whose job it is to keep the hive clean.
0:51:34 > 0:51:41And it's the efficiency of these bees that professor Francis Ratnieks and his team are keen to exploit.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46Hygienic bees control these brood diseases
0:51:46 > 0:51:52by removing any dead larvae or pupae very soon after it gets sick.
0:51:52 > 0:51:57The idea is that one bad apple can spoil a whole barrel of apples
0:51:57 > 0:52:01and if the bees can remove them then they can prevent the disease infecting the whole colony.
0:52:03 > 0:52:05Since they all look rather similar,
0:52:05 > 0:52:09the trick is learning how to select the right bees.
0:52:09 > 0:52:16To do this researchers take combs from hives and kill an area of the larval bees by freezing.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20The comb is photographed and returned to the hive.
0:52:20 > 0:52:2548 hours later, researchers go back
0:52:25 > 0:52:28to see how many of the dead bees have been removed.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31Some hives are really good at clearing out the corpses
0:52:31 > 0:52:33while others are less efficient.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38The cleaner the comb, the more hygienic the bee,
0:52:38 > 0:52:41and it's these that are selected for breeding.
0:52:41 > 0:52:46We're not actually doing any genetic changes but nevertheless we use
0:52:46 > 0:52:48some modern genetic methods,
0:52:48 > 0:52:52if you like, to tell which is the best mother or the best father
0:52:52 > 0:52:55to use in our breeding programme.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58While the Sussex programme and others around the world
0:52:58 > 0:53:02use modern scientific techniques to accelerate and improve on
0:53:02 > 0:53:06traditional breeding methods, the research will still take time.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12Time in which bees are continuing to die.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21In America, after three years of astonishing vanishings,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25scientists are still unable to find a single
0:53:25 > 0:53:32definite culprit on which to blame the disorder, Colony Collapse or CCD.
0:53:32 > 0:53:37Pesticides may be playing a part, but most experts have concluded
0:53:37 > 0:53:40that there's a range of factors involved.
0:53:40 > 0:53:45From diseases, to trucking, to lack of varied food sources.
0:53:45 > 0:53:47There is no-one cause of CCD.
0:53:47 > 0:53:52There is nothing, at least that we have been able to find by looking
0:53:52 > 0:53:57very hard, there is no one reason for this collapse.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01What's clear is that Colony Collapse Disorder
0:54:01 > 0:54:04isn't the only problem that bees are facing.
0:54:04 > 0:54:07In most parts of the world they're battling Varroa
0:54:07 > 0:54:09and a range of other diseases.
0:54:09 > 0:54:14Science may be learning more about bees, but so far it's been unable
0:54:14 > 0:54:18to come up with effective solutions to keep them alive.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21Here's a bee colony that can't live
0:54:21 > 0:54:24in the environment that we're giving them.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27And bees are out there
0:54:27 > 0:54:29sweeping the environment.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32That's what they do.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35And they come back in the colony
0:54:35 > 0:54:37and the nest may be contaminated.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40And it may be full of mites.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45And then they get moved around to pollinate crops.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48It's just too much.
0:54:48 > 0:54:55They are showing us directly what we're doing to the environment.
0:54:56 > 0:55:01Bees act as a barometer for the general health of the planet
0:55:01 > 0:55:04and I think if you've got one creature
0:55:04 > 0:55:07that's been so widespread across the planet
0:55:07 > 0:55:10and suddenly it's under such attack that they're almost being
0:55:10 > 0:55:14wiped out, we've got to be asking how that's feeding further up
0:55:14 > 0:55:16the food chain and right across nature.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20While science scrambles for a definite answer
0:55:20 > 0:55:25to why bees are dying, there are things that we, as individuals,
0:55:25 > 0:55:27can do to help save our bees.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32Most people don't have a lot of land, they just have a small garden,
0:55:32 > 0:55:34but if we took all the gardens
0:55:34 > 0:55:37across the whole of the country, it's a substantial area
0:55:37 > 0:55:41so individuals can make a difference by making sure that their gardens
0:55:41 > 0:55:43have as many wild flowers...
0:55:43 > 0:55:45Or they don't have to be wild flowers,
0:55:45 > 0:55:51they could be garden flowers, just so long as they provide something for wildlife.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54I think if you've got land, make it available.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58Maybe get three or four hives or allow a young, oncoming beekeeper
0:55:58 > 0:56:00to actually keep a few hives in your space.
0:56:00 > 0:56:04I think that's a good way of moving forward, and you'll get a few jars of honey!
0:56:07 > 0:56:12At last we're finally realising just how much we depend on bees.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16Just how much of human life, as we know it,
0:56:16 > 0:56:18wouldn't exist without the bees.
0:56:18 > 0:56:24The only good thing I can see coming out of this terrible loss of honey bee colonies
0:56:24 > 0:56:30is that maybe we'll finally redress the balance and feel a bit more gratitude to bees.
0:56:32 > 0:56:37When I think of the problems facing bees and why they've been bought to
0:56:37 > 0:56:42the brink, I have to wonder whether they're the canary in the coalmine.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46An early warning about the state of our planet.
0:56:46 > 0:56:51It's clear that to help the bee, we have to think about the environment
0:56:51 > 0:56:54and ways that we can change our own behaviour.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08I know now from bitter experience how easily they can disappear.
0:57:16 > 0:57:21This winter was absolutely terrible for my bees.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25When the hive was opened up in the spring most of them were dead.
0:57:25 > 0:57:28That's the third time it's happened to me.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31It's very distressing when you see thousands of these creatures
0:57:31 > 0:57:34that you've looked after throughout the year
0:57:34 > 0:57:36lying dead on the floor of the hive.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41I've decided I am going to try and rebuild my colony,
0:57:41 > 0:57:49even though it's difficult, because it's so important that we try and boost the population of bees.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53This isn't simply about getting honey, or beekeeping as a hobby -
0:57:53 > 0:57:58it's about protecting vital sources of food for all of us.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01We need to create an environment in which bees can survive,
0:58:01 > 0:58:05not just for now but for generations to come.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09After all, a world which is kind to the honey bee
0:58:09 > 0:58:11has to be good for the rest of us too.
0:58:26 > 0:58:29Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:29 > 0:58:32E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk