The immediate problems around here is the cold and lack of blossoms on the fruit trees.
I remember the first time I saw what appeared to have been...a swarm of honeybees lying dead and dying on a park bench. It was quite a schock.
This was several years after reading the first news releases about the die offs.
I highly recommend signing up with Arbor Day Foundation (http://www.arborday.org/) With each membership you get 10 free trees. I’ve been getting flowering trees. They arrive as 18” to 24” twigs, and over 90% of them take root. It takes a few years for them to bloom. Trees can also increase rainfall. We need to start planting trees in the borderlands between areas suitable for farming and dry areas to gradually increase arable land.
In addition trumpet vines and passionflower vines are great host plants for honeybees, butterflys and hummingbirds. They make great fence cover and bloom beautifully throughout most of the summer and fall.
Coastal Oregon had beautiful weather and the flowerrs stayed on the trees, for a change. I saw no honeybees at all this year, ‘til I saw ONE yesterday. If the Miner bees did their job, maybe there will be a crop.