Artists like Ava Roth are also raising awareness about bees by creating art in collaboration with honeybees. Based out of Toronto, Canada, Roth likes to use a variety of materials found in nature ...

This sculpture, Miss Bee Haven, was created in 2009 by the Art/Science Fusion project at UC Davis. The bee is perched upon a mosaic flower that tops a hexagonal bench, whose seat is patterned to look ...

But for the folk-art fancier, there is still plenty of honey in the old hives: genuine antique beehive paintings now bring up to $1,600 apiece.

Anna Gaseitsiwe, left, Susan Brown and Suzanne Casler outside Mademoiselle Miel in St. Paul. Gaseitsiwe and Casler created the honeycomb art installation on the side of the building.

Just in the way that humans enjoy eating honey, bees create honey to nourish their entire colony, Sánchez-Blanco says. The average beehive houses anywhere between 60,000 to 80,000 bees ...