Without honeybees, some of the foods we eat, like almonds, could become extinct; the cost of others, such as cherries and avocados, would likely skyrocket. Cathy Isom tells you how you can keep busy as a bee this summer — by keeping your own bees.
From: Modern Farmer
How to Keep Honeybees
Join the backyard beekeeping revolution and keep pollinators buzzing. The payback’s pretty sweet.
You can hardly say “honeybee” anymore without hearing the reverb “colony collapse disorder.” Back in 2006, 
American beekeepers began reporting staggering losses, ranging from 30 to 90 percent of their hives. Since then, the alarming phenomenon—in which adult bees disappear, leaving the brood behind to die—has afflicted Europe as well. And honey’s far from the only reason to care. In America alone, the pollinators enable the production of roughly 90 commercial crops, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Without honeybees, some of the foods we eat, like almonds, could become extinct; the cost of others, such as cherries and avocados, would likely skyrocket. A decade after the disorder first surfaced, scientists have yet to identify a definitive culprit.