A few quick notes about bees. We all know that bees are essential to our daily lives, no matter how much we dislike their stingers. But with bee populations decreasing drastically over the past few years, their continued health has become even more vital. So to remind us all about our little buzzing friends, here's a few stories from around the web about bees.

First, in the UK, beekeepers are pushing for money to research ways to prevent the colony collapses seen here in the U.S.

Beekeepers have warned that most of the country's honey bees could be wiped out by disease in 10 years unless an urgent research programme is launched to find new treatments and drugs. They are to launch a nationwide campaign, including protests, to force the government to fund the £8m research project which they say is needed to save the nation's bees.

 

Ministers say they have no budget for such a programme, a claim rejected by keepers, who are to lobby MPs, gather at the House of Commons for a protest meeting and begin a letter campaign
to raise support for research funds.

'Beekeeping is still reeling from the varroa mite, which carries a number of viruses and which devastated thousands of hives across the country when it reached Britain 10 years ago,' said Tim Lovett, president of the British Beekeeping Association. 'Now there is a real danger that colony
collapse disease - which has wiped out 80 per cent of bees in parts of the US - will appear in this country. Unless we develop effective protection, there could then be massive losses of bees across the country.'

There are around 250,000 honey bee hives in Britain and a recent estimate by the Department for Farming, Environment and Rural Affairs revealed that bees contribute £165m a year to the economy
through their pollination of fruit trees, field beans and other crops. In addition, the 5,000 tonnes of British honey sold in UK stores generates a further £12m.

But, despite the importance of bees to the nation's economy, the government has said it has no cash left for agricultural research projects. 'If nothing is done about it, the honey bee population could be wiped out in 10 years,' the Farming Minister, Lord Rooker, has admitted in the House of Lords. However, Lovett said the minister had since written to his association saying there was no money available for a research programme.

Back in the states, beekeeping is getting a boost in popularity:

Successful beekeeping is like performing the most intricate waltz; you need technical skills, but intuition is the most important part.

 

And more people in southeastern North Carolina are attracted to the dance - from professionals to hobbyists - as interest in environmentalism and the local food movement grows. A beekeeping association is forming in New Hanover County, and a beekeeping school will hold its first classes in March in Ogden.

"(Beekeeping is) growing by leaps and bounds because there's no wild bees out there anymore, and people are doing a lot of backyard gardening and all the blueberries and truck farming crops in that area of the state have to have bees brought in for pollination," Bill Sheppard, an apiary inspector for the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association, says. More than 2,000 members belong to the association, making it the nation's largest.

Awareness of beekeeping is also getting a boost with the local filming of "The Secret Life of Bees," about a family of beekeepers who takes in a runaway girl. The production has brought stars such as Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Dakota Fanning to town.

But because of Colony Collapse Disorder, bees are becoming a goldmine to the keepers who have them, and new target for adventurous thieves.

Third-generation beekeeper Roscoe Hall spent the last year fretting over a disease that's inexplicably caused thousands of his industrious insects to abandon their colonies.

 

Now, entire hives are disappearing, too.

In the long, flat valley where the nation's almonds grow, bee thieves are striking hard this winter, nabbing increasingly valuable hives from farmers' fields where bees are used to pollinate blossoming nut trees.

A few weeks ago, 180 of Hall's hives were lifted over a period of days, a bit of banditry he estimates cost him nearly $70,000 in lost bees, pollination fees and honey production.

"If a man doesn't have his bees under lock and key these days, he's going to pay for it," Hall said as he opened one of his remaining hives to reveal thousands of amber-colored bees busy in the honeycomb. "Even then they'll find a way of breaking the lock."

In other words, it could be another tough year for bees and their keepers, but hopefully new interest in beekeeping will help stave off a catastrophe.