You’ve probably heard about the sudden and mysterious drop in honey bee populations throughout the U.S.A. and Europe. Beekeepers used to report average losses of about 5-10% a year, but starting around 2006, that rate jumped to about 30%. Today, many large beekeeping operations are reporting that up to 50 percent of their swarms have mysteriously disappeared. This massive die-off of the honey bee populations is a big, big deal.