The news media and the non-profits have latched upon the impending demise of the pollinator. It is a great money maker for fund raising and selling advertising. Nothing sells as well as fear. If you scrutinize the reports, they generally trace back to the drop in the number of honey bee colonies from the 1940s to the 1960s. This is the core of the argument, and it was caused by economic factors. 

The number of hives in the US had increased from 4 million to 6 million during WWII. This was followed by a decline in demand for honey and wax, causing the numbers to fall back to pre-war levels. A second big drop in the 1980s was caused a change in the census rules, wiping out some one million hives. In Europe similar economic and political changes caused a decline in the number of bees and beekeepers. 

If a pollination crisis arises, such as in the almond industry, the fee for pollination rises, and beekeepers start raising more bees, instead of trying to produce honey. But the bottom line is, these are economic problems, not environmental ones. It's nonsense to use the relationship between commercial agriculture and commercial pollination to demonstrate some sort of ecological crisis. 

* * *

The prospect that a global pollination crisis currently
threatens agricultural productivity has drawn intense recent
interest among scientists, politicians, and the general public.

To date, evidence for a global crisis has been drawn
from regional or local declines in pollinators themselves
or insufficient pollination for particular crops.

In contrast, our analysis of Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) data reveals that the global population of
managed honey-bee hives has increased > 45% during the
last half century and suggests that economic globalization,
rather than biological factors, drives both the dynamics of
the global managed honey-bee population and increasing
demands for agricultural pollination services.

Current Biology 19, 915–918, June 9, 2009

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