A new task force established by President Obama, “new Steps to Promote Pollinator health,” resulted in national media picking up the story and running in several directions with the information.

Following the white House blog post announcing the initiative, EPA sent an e-mail providing much more detail.

Agriculture, including the bee industry, understands the pollinator decline is a multi-faceted issue. Possible causes include varroa mites, stress on bees due to movement of hives, pathogens, neonicotinoid insecticides and other things. The latest issue of Focus on South Plains Agriculture, FOCUS on South Plains Agriculture looks at recent developments and offers several links to review scientific data on honeybee population decline.

Honeybee decline is acknowledged to be a multi-faceted problem, the Focus on south Plains Agriculture writes. “In spite of the temptation to jump in and blame or exonerate neonicotinoids, it is really time to wait for more research results to accumulate; complicated problems often take a while to sort out.”