Eagle's Nest Apiary has been hit with the biggest loss of honey bees that owner Henrijs Vilcinskis says has ever faced him.

But, even so, he might be better off than many of his fellow beekeepers in the Niagara Peninsula and throughout the United States.

"It's very big problem." He said that for the first time in his life, he has discovered that about 50 per cent of his bee population has died.

In Niagara, however, some apiaries were reporting losses of as much as 90 per cent.

It's not just a problem for the beekeepers. "It's the apple orchards and all the farmers (who'll suffer)," Mr. Vilcinskis said.

When there are only a few honey bees, there's little pollination. When pollination is limited, there's a shortage of fruit and other crop production.

The Canadian Honey Council says it takes one colony of about 30,000 bees to pollinate a single acre of fruit trees. The need for pollination is critical when the fruit trees are in full bloom.

The bee population does increase through the summer, but the average life of a worker bee is six weeks, according to the council.

Each bee colony, or hive, has a single queen who lays on average 2,000 eggs a day, the council says.

Mr. Vilcinskis didn't say whether any of his queens have died, but he did say that he and other beekeepers would need to acquire more queens.

Those vital females might be available from specialist suppliers, but there was little doubt in Mr. Vilcinskis's mind that prices will have skyrocketed. He said everyone will be looking to buy queens, "so now the price is so high."

Theories abound about the reasons for the deaths of so many bees, but there have been no definitive answers to date.

With the exception of February, this past winter had higher temperatures than normal. February is said to have been the coldest in 30 years, so one theory is that the bees froze.

No, goes another theory, the dead bees succumbed to some mysterious ailment. But another bee watcher has advanced a theory that there has been an invasion of mites.

Yet the latest theory is that the bees simply disappeared as they refused to return to their hives because of a reaction to cellular phones or event electrical transmission lines.

"Nobody knows," said Mr. Vilcinskis in what might have been the most honest appraisal of the situation to date.

It is a situation that is being taken seriously by all observers. The honey council says there is practically a total reliance on honey bees for pollination, as "natural pollinators are disappearing rapidly and each year we become more dependent on honey bees for many of our daily foods."