Early 20th Century mobile bee hives, Weimar Bee Museum, Germany. Beekeepers have a long history of supplying bees to farmers or agriculturists to pollinate crops. These colourful bee hive boxes are conveyed on this wagon and rented out for a period of a few weeks. The brightly coloured hives can easily be seen and located in a field so the beekeeper can retrieve them easily when the bees have done their pollinating job.

In the present time, bees are showing signs of stress due to being overworked. Symptoms of stress on the bees include dieback of colonies, diseases, and susceptibility to Varoa mite parasite. Pesticides used on agricultural crops is also to blame for bee dieback. An alarming decline in honey bee (Apis Mellifera) populations worldwide will mean problems with crop production for human consumption.

Interestingly the USA has no native honey bees so bees are imported mainly from Europe to pollinate American crops.