Wouldn't be a Science magazine article if it didn't find a way to mention how humans are an infection of Gaia.
Actually there wouldn't be nearly as many honeybees in the world if it weren't for humans.
The old farmer down the road from me makes a lot of sense putting "colony collapse" into perspective and offers an plausible explanation.
He says that when he was a kid in the 1930s every farm had beehives. He said it was a natural part of farming like raising chickens, a few pigs, and cows etc. It was part of basic sustenance farming and bees produced a low cost sweetener the same as tapping maple trees for syrup.
These days its pretty rare for people to raise bees but it does appear that the numbers are growing a bit. In fact there is a bee supply store in Napoleon now right next to the livestock auction.
http://napoleonbeesupply.com/
