I would hypothesize that changing land use patterns have had a much larger impact on pollinator habitat than we admit.  I can use the area where I grew up in NE Missouri as an example.  There are fewer fence rows with weeds, intensive grazing with cattle, spraying of pastures for weeds, brushhogging of pastures, etc.  Tends to result in monoculture blooms (mostly dutch white and sweet clover) in my opinion.  I have not seen a good Spanish Needle bloom in years....everything is cut, grazed or brushhogged before the bloom in fall.   In addition, there are vast areas of apicultural wasteland covered with fescue type forage that don't provide any opportunity for pollinators.  While a lot of the weeds and shrubs like buckbrush and sumac didn't provide a honey flow they did provide nectar and pollen that overall kept the hive healthy and productive on main flows.  These same acreages in the past had coveys of quail on every ditch; it is unusual to even see or hear one these days.  Even the CRP land do not appear especially productive to me, although I occasionally see one with good sweet clover stands.

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