Aside from the Varroa Mite  problem, general hive management has contributed to the decline in bee hive health.
Trucking bees from one state to another on trucks means vibration, disorientation and often no real food for the bees when they are put to work. The California almond groves are sterile zones providing little nectar or pollen for the hive. Put in alfalfa ground covers and you would have healthier soils and stronger hives. Just think, would you be happy working under such trucked out conditions and then having to over-winter in the Dakota’s?
This is totally foreign to natural beekeeping. Worse yet are disposable hives in which you put out bought hives in cardboard boxes. Come winter rains or snow, the hive box crumbles and the ill bees can spread their problems to healthy well cared for hives across the neighborhood. Hoover-vile bee shanties are a blight to the community as were the human ones.    
Throw in electro-magnetic contamination from Wi-fi and you further create new challenges to their ability to communicate. All this is before, or in addition to the pesticide, and fungicide issues that bees face on a daily basis.

A healthy food, it has now been so processed and compromised that I would NEVER buy orange or alfalfa honey knowing how often they are sprayed. Desert or wild flower honey YES. Same for many local honeys where you can speak to the local bee keeper and see what he or she is about. 

Another point in buying organic local honey.

1. Asian honey is banned in Europe but our gutted FDA allows it in, worse yet some is smuggled in – up to one third of all our honey is smuggled in from china and may have pesticides, heavy metals or illegal antibiotics. Europe considers it unsafe. We do not.

2.The process of heating and filtering of honey removes all the pollen from that “HEALTH” food. IMO, without pollen it is simply another sugar intake.
Be it KFC, Smucker, McDonald’s, Walgreens, Rite Aid 100 percent of the honey sampled had no pollen.

“77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target had the pollen filtered out.”

Returning to the headline – here is a link to what your grocery store  would look like in a world without bees.   

This year (2018) I have been dismayed to find not a single bee working my plums, cherries and other nectar plants, nor have I seen them on the earlier pollen producing plants.

Algae and soybeans might replace some of our food but it would be a sad and limited diet to be sure. 
All are reasons to buy local honey or raise your own. Same with EGGS – my chicken ranch is going chitteringly and at least will be delivering eggs far before I ever get any honey as I have just begun to build my hives and am looking for my first swarm. Wish me luck!

(2015) Edited 2018