> "The clearest data is from beekeepers in agricultural areas. 
> Virtually every long-time beekeeper that I've spoken to across 
> the country tells me that pesticide issues these days have 
> improved greatly over how it used to be."

This is a very narrow "answer" to a question, that if posed honestly and
answered honestly, would have a very different answer.

The simple issue of queen "longevity" (in terms of productive life) has
degraded alarmingly during the personal experience of the longer-term
members of this list, such as myself.  Many beekeepers now struggle to keep
queens laying for a single year.

It used to be than "annual requeening" was touted as a brute-force approach
to swarm control for the beekeeper with neighbors hostile to the idea of
beekeeping.  Everyone else could easily get 3 years out of a queen.

Is this a "pesticide issue"?  
It is hard to say.

Pollution is far less than it was in the 1970s, and regulations concerning
all aspects of industry and agriculture have gotten tighter.
But we can't keep queens in the boxes, and this is a basic issue with
serious and significant impact, one that the USDA ARS still has no clue
about.

But it is clearly a problem of "modern times", as my average and outlier
useful queen lifespans have gone down as compared to even the late 1980s and
early 1990s.
The entire bell curve has moved.  It also is not a very useful or
bell-shaped bell curve any more, as the range of lifespans is narrower.
Anyone who has records that includes requeening can see the same thing.

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