I agree! And you've done wonderfully well covering many topics concerning them.
I've been very fortunate by having a mini-farm that is basically an "island", surrounded by quite a few hundred acres on 3 sides and 20-40 acres on a fourth side which is boundaried by an interstate. Because of the seclusion and being the only farmer down our dirt road I've always had plenty of bees, never witnessing the loss of them, colony collapse, etc. I have no doubt it is because I've kept nature as intact as possible, encouraging wildflowers, wild "weeds", no spray programs, etc, and growing green manures, cover crops and such year round, allowing the flowers to declare. This does wonders for the insect life/wildlife population. A bee keeper would be happy to set his/her hives here.
Speaking of hives, flafwrgrl, I once considered having bees but at the time I didn't have the monetary investment (hives, supers, bees w/queens, extractor, "the costume", etc) so bowed out. I bet I could find a local bee keeper to put some hives on my land though!
Shoe
