What makes bumble bees suddenly drop dead in large numbers?

The other day one dropped dead in front of my eyes right into the basket of my bike while I was chaining it up .





I ´ve found a couple of dead bees in the house in the last week and today whilst walking home from work I saw dozens dead on the pavement.





Is this a natural phenomena or would something man made cause this?What makes bumble bees suddenly drop dead in large numbers?
do pesticides have anything to do with it?What makes bumble bees suddenly drop dead in large numbers?
Bee losses are a huge concern. Have they sprayed the fields around your place in the past week? This could be the cause of local deaths like this, but the bee population is dropping at an alarming rate at the moment, and we are all in serious trouble if this happens because bees are necessary for polination and without that, we have no food.





I've noticed a few who seemed to be struggling (acting very dozy) in our garden this year. It's not good news.
I've heard it's a serious worldwide problem. Apparently bees pollinate one third of our food source and they're dying out because of some virus (which is prevalent because of climate change) Also loss of habitat.





Weirdly we've found two hives of different sorts of bumble bees in the rubble left over from our extension! I didn't know they nested in mud and stones. If you have a hive - you need to dig out the honeycomb and the Queen - cover with leaves and then put a plant pot (with a hole) over the top and the others will find there way back there over the next 4 days.
There are a few things causing this problem, with wild honey bees already decimated by disease, beekeepers made a mistake of importing bees from other countries thus upsetting the food chain. Then there's the Varroa mite, and the biggest problem that bees have been killed off by temperature changes, as they have been fooled into breeding early, then frozen by very cold weather.
Some say it is the collapse of the natural colony ';colony collapse disorder'; caused by importing bees, too many 'foreign' plants and shrubs (just the other week I got a free packet of wild flowers seeds) and climate changes....all of which could be man made.


I have heard of the mite being a major cause too.


They say the death of humans is only four years behind the extinction of bees
Same thing is happening here in New Zealand..


Bumble bees %26amp; honey bees.


However it's the honey bees we should be concerned about.


They even have to bring bees in special containers to pollinate orchards etc.





Varroa mite..This mite is killing honey bees.


End result...no bees in our world, no pollination + no food = starvation.


This will be the next big thing to cause our world to fall, along with a shortage of water.
Honeybees have been dying or disappearing from their hives the last few years and that is a big problem for commercial beekeepers. I don't know about bumble bees. Some theories with honeybees might be a virus or some kind of insecticide that mixes them up and they can't find their way back to the hive.
I've heard all kinds of things about the plight of bees over the last few years. There's been talk about the African killer bee decimating the native North American bees, about how hive after hive has been abandoned for no apparent reason and people have speculated that something is making their navigation systems go awry (like cell phone waves or climate change), apparently there have been problems with exploding populations of pathogens that have killed off many hives. Bad time for bees, and without them, we're pretty well screwed.
Apparently the Honey industry is being decimated by the Varroa mite which is infecting hives and causing serious damage to the number of bee's. This is quite serious because not only do bee's produce honey, but they pollinate plants.





No plants = no food.
Same thing happened to me while I was hanging out the washing this morning. A dying bumble bee landed straight in the peg basket and proceeded to waggle its legs at me!





I did my best to assist (stopping short of mouth to mouth) but it died regardless of my efforts.





Very sad. RIP pretty bee :-(
I recall seeing a documentry about this which left me depressed. Bees are being wiped out by a virus, in 2008 it was claimed that they could be wiped out in TEN years if drastic action is not taken





No bees, no fruit or veg.





http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7358…





How many more man made viruses until humans are wiped out?
Bumble bees have completely different life cycle to honey bees.All of the males die after mating.





http://www.bumblebee.org/lifecycle.htm
There are various theories on this..most mentioned...also the use of chemical pesticides mean that 'urban bees' are still thriving,yet 'rural bees' are in rapid decline.


Very sad..
I've heard about this. I think it is man made. I have no idea what is happening though. Maybe there is something in the pollen?
Probably someones been spraying insecticide .
Yep me too.Dead bees in the back garden.People don't realise that if bees died out we would be in BIG trouble.
Your hairspray or BO.
heat and maybe the lack of food issue as well. i found s bee in my house just by my bedroom window. Poor little dudes
Suicide pact.
i'm not sure if its true but when they loose theyre sting they die x