Mass deaths of millions of Bees. Is this the beginning of the end?

[1a2b3c4deltaradio]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/08/record-us-bee-colony-dieoffs-climate-stress-pesticides-silent-spring-aoe

The link is about the mass death of millions of honey Bees which are also used to pollinate crops all around the country in the US.
This has massive implications! Food price increase is a big one. If the US is struggling then they will be importing more and everything will go up for everyone.

I'm actually terrified. Food security is a big worry for me (grew up poor and hungry) and so I have a beautiful well looked after garden full of food. We can manage to basically leave out the fruit and veg from our shopping for half the year usually. Not this year. We have been having to hand pollinate our plants to encourage fruits (pumpkins, courgettes etc the big ones)
I was wondering if something was up and saw this happening in the US. Is it happening here in the UK too? Anecdotally our friends and neighbours (the gardeners or allotmenteers) have seen a fall in pollination the past few years. However we have had a good few housing estates built around the area, so we attributed it to that, less space for wildlife? Our council still uses glysophate weed killer on our streets (which obviously run into our gardens too.)

I'm at my wits end here, I feel like any good I can do is being cancelled out in one second by the powers that be. I can't compete and its so worrying.

Tons of bees in my garden from different species, the bees even kicked the great tits out of their nesting box

@TaraMySalata. So many ladybirds last month. Improved now, they were swarming here on the Somerset coast

For the UK I think it's mostly weather related, a complete lack of rain for many months stunted the growth of most plants and trees.

Also the Govn has banned the use of a seed dressing for oil seed rape on the basis that a dose 1,000x stronger could kill bees, so its now very unprofitable to grow, OSR was a huge attraction for bees and so they lost that as a food source which is a bigger loss than the number of bees from the seed dressing.

edit - Oops - should have quoted, this was a response to the comment about how the landscape in the US looks so differernt when you fly over -

To an extent that is because the landscapes are themselves differernt. It's why ranching is a thing in the US, for example, letting livestock essentially run over massive ranges of natural grassland or in some areas, forest. Living in much the same way wild herds would. There are ranches with more than a million acres, though that is on the large side.

Done right, that's quite a sustainable way to farm and can even be done with native species like bison (or kangaroo in Australia though I don't know if anyone does that on a large scale.)

Big plant monocultures can mimic very large wide open grasslands, except that once you introduce a lot of chemical herbicides and pesticides to make sure the plant diversity is zero, and once you have chemical fertilisers and can plant nutrient heavy crops like corn year upon year, you totally fuck the ecosystem and destroy the soil. Plus if you are in places like California you are destroying the water reserves.

In some ways it is a fragile kind of landscape but it's also been treated very harshly.

Recent cuts etc certainly aren’t helping but this isn’t just a recent issue in the US.

what are the fruit farms etc like in Canada? My late greataunts had one right on the US border in B.C. - semi desert, dependent on irrigation. I’d imagine bad US practices may have a spillover effect?

I think this is what is called scaremongering. We are all doomed, doomed.

ooh I haven't seen a single wasp yet either
usually they've come for the caterpillars by now

I can't think of anything other than the new housing developments and a few lawns missing in my local area that could cause such a fuss. I saw this news post and it started me wondering if that could be happening here (the pesticides etc are they similar to the US?) surely a few housing estates can't have that much of an impact so quickly?

Also
to counter the bad stuff I've seen quite a few people grow their lawn and do No Mow May (and June and July...) a few neighbours have been putting out water too for hedgehogs and foxes (and insects I supose) I just felt like the last few years people were changing their habits and I dared to hope things were on an upward turn but now I feel really deflated.
oh and lots of friends buy second hand from vinted when only a few years ago they were laughing at me for going second hand! it's really been nice seeing the good changes but I suppose they don't amount to much in the face of the world

I've actually seen 2 hornets this year... dots are connecting. I completely forgot about those encounters ha!

We had a hornet in our house a few months ago. But it was definitely not an Asian one, and it was a one-off. They usually don't go in houses so if you see one more than once, there is something going on.

I can't say I've seen more insects this year generally but there seem to be a few more wasps about.

I also saw something on The Times website about wasps killing honey bees. People said "you mean hornets" and the keepers said "no we mean wasps", I didn't know they killed bees.

I live in a terraced street in London and we petitioned the local council to be allowed to plant insect and bee friendly plants around the bases of the trees in the road. It's working well and other streets are copying this. We also have bee.friendly plants in our gardens. All because a neighbour saw a documentary and raised awareness. Every little helps

We’ve got lots of new housing estates around here now (with names evoking what was there before … The Paddocks, Hayfields etc etc…I really wish developers were banned from doing that!). But I’ve seen no reduction in the number of insects, including a few wasps. (North west England).

All pollinators need more food - which means more flowers.

The European Hornet is a noisy beast that flies at night. Really noisy!
The Yellow-legged hornet is an invasive species.

The wasps (there are several species) are probably really annoying right now - they're definitely interested in sweet stuff here.
BBKA have a video here
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=683659594315438
Showing a huge European hornet and 2 Yellow-legged hornets.

Graphic to appear by magic shortly:
Size comparison is useful on this.

@ErrolTheDragon dh says provincially (bc) losses were reported at 43%; a combination of mites, location, and practices. dh manages 5% loss with his 50+ hives. like it or not many farmers outright lie/minimize the products used on their fruit trees and berry shrubs (the blueberry farmers are notoriously unscrupulous). dh does not transport his bees, they are spread over 5 properties and seriously well monitored he's very involved with a few universities. the bee situation appears well studied and tends to get lots of publicity (good bad or indifferent/popular topic to report on).

I don't really know. My expertise in this matter was from a radio 4 programme on the subject a couple of years ago. Practices may have changed since then, but it sounded a pretty depressing and sterile environment.

I guess undergrowth would impede any machinery, which might push up fuel costs.

The good news is that you can do such a lot to encourage pollinators even in a tiny space - a few pots on a balcony or a window box can make a difference.

Someone upthread mentioned the mistaken pro-vegan arguments that are used against farming. U.K. agriculture methods are not perfect but huge steps have been made in terms of regenerative agriculture. Livestock farming round me helps sustain protected habitats like Culm grassland and supports a huge range of insect life.

trees are a huge source of pollen for a relatively small area.
our bees love the maples/locust and russian olives we planted a linden tree specifically for the pollen.