"Researchers point to concerns over pesticides as diseases as bee numbers drop while farmland requiring the pollinators increases"

"Wild bees, crucial pollinators for many crops, are on the decline in some of the main agricultural regions of the United States, according to scientists who produced the first national map of bee populations and identified numerous trouble spots.

The researchers on Monday cited 139 counties as especially worrisome, with wild bee numbers decreasing while farmland for crops dependent on such pollinators is increasing.

The counties included agricultural regions of California such as the Central Valley, as well as the Pacific northwest, the upper midwest and Great Plains, west Texas and the southern Mississippi river valley."

Will Dunham reports for Reuters December 21, 2015. [2]