science

IIRC, there was a study a few years ago that basically shrieked "IT'S THE NEONICOTINOIDS, IDIOT", and the response seems to have been "well, yes, but we make money selling that, so find something else to blame, dumbass."

I'm in central California and our insect populations have cratered HARD. Used to be that you couldn't drive east-west across the San Joaquin valley without getting the front of your car called in bugs; it hasn't been a problem at all for about two years now. I've seen probably a 95% decline in butterflies and bee-like insects; that is, I see about 1/20th of the butterflies I used to. This is deeply worrying. I had a dude come and offer to flush my lawn with pesticide to get all of the bugs out of it, and I took a moment to calmly talk to him about how he's contributing to complete ecological collapse.

that is fine, Trump orders retracting word pesticides from every article, done.

It’s definitely pesticide. Plus a lack of plant diversity. If farmers focused on building strips of natives bordering their fields honeybees wouldn’t even be necessary. Honeybees are an invasive species in the US. There are thousands of amazing American bee species that would pollinate our crops if we leave a little room for them, and stopped using pesticides and herbicides everywhere, all they need is a small amount of habitat.

Where I live, in a very large city, there is a ban on roundup and we have no issues with a lack of bees, as long as there’s not acres of lawn.

I’m an ecologist and I used to work at a botanical garden. we had a bee researcher who found 120 species of native bees, plus tons of wild honeybee colonies breaking off new ones every year. He believed it was the plant diversity in the gardens that contributed to the number of species.

Huh, maybe valuing profit over everything else has its drawbacks after all?

Scientists cite climate change, habitat loss, pesticide use, varroa mites, and poor handling as potential causes.

Probably there's not one main cause, it's all of those and possibly more "small" causes that all need action to counter them.

Paul Stamets has already found that the primary cause is pesticide and fungicide. Bee's are able to gain immunities through mycological contact.

Was personally just looking around and thinking "Where the fuck are all the bees?". They're normally extremely active in my area this time of year, and am devastated to hear this.

The bees were just lazy and couldn’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The survivors will surely be stronger.

I'm guessing pesticide usage is probably killing a lot more bugs than we realize. Bees are one of a number of pollinators. Wasps, moths, bats, hummingbirds, and other creatures also play a role.

Between destruction of habitat, overuse of pesticides, and climate change making things hotter/drier/easier for diseases to spread, I think those are probably the main factors.

It's burnout. They see the headlines everyday, and the flowers just don't seem as bright as they used to.

Pesticides and climate destruction?

Waiting for the next headline to have "Experts suggest" this.

I got hella bees that come and pollinate these holly shrubs in my backyard

People.

It's people.