Britain's honeybees decreased a third in the past year

Farmers have warned that the disappearance of bees could devastate food crops and the environment because about three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce.

clipped from www.chron.com The British bee losses have not been as dramatic as those in the United States, but beekeepers say it is getting worse. In 2006, U.S. beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. But the British Beekeepers' Association says almost a third of honeybee colonies, containing almost 2 billion bees, have been lost over the past year, in part because of the varroa mite parasite and an exceptionally wet summer.