Bees pollinate up to $20 billion in American crops per year and one out of every three bites of food we consume depends on bees for pollination. Over recent years bees have been dying off in large numbers by mysterious causes. Last month the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a report summarizing its efforts to discover the reason for this phenomena and it vaguely concluded that many factors may be responsible from stress to pesticides. Now agricultural and agricultural chemical companies are joining in the search to solve this mystery. Monsanto Co. which owns Seminis, the country’s largest fruit and vegetable seed producer (which depend on bees) has bought an Israeli bee research company and has hosted a bee health conference at its headquarters. Bayer CropScience is building a 5,500 square foot bee health center in North Carolina and has joined with Syngenta to develop a comprehensive action plan for bee health. But are these companies that are searching for the answer the root of the problem? To read more about the work being done by researchers to solve the problem of bee die-off: