[madaxe_again]

A neighbour who used to keep hives here (France) until a few months ago has had them repeatedly wiped out by fungal infections, as the combination of hot and damp then suddenly cold then hot again isn't normal for this part of the world. They had four false springs here this year - crops suffered too, and foresters are having a heyday taking dead trees out of the forest.

Like you say, pesticide use alone is unlikely to be the issue - hell DDT and friends are far less friendly to insects, and we're used far longer - so it's likely a whole host of anthrogenic factors which are wiping out the bees, much like many other species.

We're pretty much the worst thing since the cambrian-ordovician extinction event for biodiversity.

[pvaldes]

Not to mention the expansion of the killer bee asiatic vesp in France.

[madaxe_again]

Yup - this sort of thing has happened before (parasites spreading outside of their natural range - i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera), but as far as I'm aware this is the first time we've seen it happening due to climatic shifts, rather than direct human involvement (gee, let's import cane toads to get rid of those pesky beetles).

No amount of biosecurity can defeat threats that travel on the wind.

[pvaldes]

s/vesp/wasp/