Where have all the Bees Gone?

I know that it is winter and most of the summer flowers are long gone, but the bees still have to eat, don’t they? This question tells me that I still have a lot to learn about the birds and the bees.

I have this dream, a dream of owning a piece of land, and on this land I dream about a small scale integrated aquaculture/hydroponic farming system along with some goats to make cheese; chickens for eggs and a bit of Sunday roast protein; and some bees for the honey. As for the bees I would have to grow bee friendly flowers everywhere especially during winter.

So because of this dream, I have started to notice things like flowers and the lack of bees. So where have all the bees gone? I know in the Western Cape they have this bee bacterium, the American Foul Brood Disease, which I have heard, I think on the Carte Blanche, our local investigative journalism television program, that this dreaded disease is believed to have been introduced into our local bee population via China. Go figure, along with their colonisation of Africa, the Chinese  have launched a secret biological attack using bees to wipe out our honey industry and therefore their dubious plan is that we would be forced to buy honey from China. I can now see all our conspiracy theorists running around like Chicken Little but you never know how close this could be to the truth.

So bee aware, when you see a little bee or two causing some mayhem during your outside sun downers, spare a though that this fellow is critical in our food chain and vital to our future.