Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

Good news! Bees may be coming back, slowly. The U.S. Agriculture Dept. says the number of commercial honeybee colonies rose 3 percent in the April 2016-April 2017 period after years of crashes.

Some of the improvement may stem from a mysterious decrease in the varroa mites implicated in the deaths of  many bees. And some may be due to more careful pesticide use by farmers and others.  Still, pollinators such as bees and butterflies remain under great stress, much of it manmade, including from the paving over of foraging areas for bees. And without pollinators, we’d eventually starve to death.

The USDA reported that the  varroa mite,  which has afflictedU.S. honeybee colonies since 1987, was reported in 42 percent of commercial hives between April and June this year, down 53 percent from the year-earlier period.

Many New Englanders have joined the campaign to protect honeybees. Notable among them are the beekeepers and physicians Jane and Allen Dennison, of Rumford, R.I. Among their promotional points is that honey is a very effective treatment for wounds -- and so a way of avoiding antibiotics and thus reducing the prevalence of antibiotic resistance. They've been speaking around America about this.