You may have noticed an increased amount of attention being paid to bees in the media as of late. From Flea's Bees to the disappearance of Buzz the Bee on Honey Nut Cheerio's boxes, everyone seems to be talking about bees.

Here's why:

• Since the late 1990's, scientists and beekeepers have been noticing a sudden and mysterious disappearance of the world's bee population--as well as an unusually high rate of decline in honeybee colonies. Although bee populations are declining everywhere in the world, the most dramatic effects are seen in Europe and North America.
• Bees are the only insect in the world that make food humans can eat--and in fact are instrumental in the production of the earth's food supply. Approximately one third of all the food that we eat depends on bees and other pollinating insects .
• Apples, nuts, summer fruits (like blueberries and strawberries), alfalfa (which cows eat), and guar bean (used in all kinds of products) are all crops deeply affected by the dramatic decrease of the earth's pollinator populations.
• It takes one colony of honey bees (around 30,000 bees) to pollinate an acre of fruit trees. Pollination success increases if there are more honey bees present at the time of peak flowering.

Watch this short video to learn more about why scientists think the world's bee populations are dying: