From the scientific research conducted to date, no clear cause for bee decline has been identified. However, consensus has been reached in the statement “a complex of factors is responsible for bee decline”. Due to the lack of meaningful results from a scientific angle, much speculation has arisen about other possible causes of bee decline.

Essentially, these can be traced back to social discontent and ‘technology pessimism’. These speculations have subsequently been effectively disseminated via idea-communities. In many cases the very topic of bee decline is their very existence, their raison d'être. Outside the global beekeeping community interest has arisen for allowing bee decline to persist.

Within the societal model, a self-defined cause has become the basic premise. People want other people to solve the problem, for example by banning pesticides, by imposing additional constraints on agriculture or by convincing private individuals and government bodies to cultivate flowering plants especially for bees.

Such measures are rarely founded by good research. Some measures are based on just a single publication.