Healthy plants, assisted by robust microbial colonies under the soil, do not require as much pesticide as the weak plants do, just as strong colonies can fend themselves off bee pathogens better than weak ones.  Plants become weak due to nutrient deficiency in the soil, which has become barren over decades of using synthetic fertilizers, which in turn has eliminated the healthy microbial biom in the soil; roots do not absorb nutrients.  Rather it is the fungal/bacterial community that converts and gives the root the nutrient in exchange of its food (sugar, 35% of photo synthesis by the plant), a long-established symbiosis.  Hence, the more use of synthetic fertilizer, the more need for pesticides.  

The following short lecture sums up this treadmill: pesticides and synthetic fertilizers merry-go-round, depleting agricultural soil fertility, which, in turn, results in nutrient deficient crops.  For instance, nearly 60% of calcium, among others, is lost in present day potatoes compared to those produced decades ago, according to the second url below.  (Other examples of loss in nutrient in crops: Vitamin C: 25%;  prosperous, 37%; calcium, 62%; iron, 70%; and riboflavin, 70%) 

Ironically, countries where people drink milk have more bone fractures compared to lactose intolerant people in other countries, according to a UC Lecture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMW2uLumAQw

A longer version on the same topic is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hpXqhPy2U

Beekeeping is just the tip of the ecological iceberg, indeed.

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