Beekeeper Thad Smith holds a frame of Italian honeybees in Cook County Jail’s parking log. Smith is a former jail detainee who founded the company West Side Bee Boyz after taking part in a job-training program. (Evan Garcia / WTTW)

Behind barbed wire fences, Cook County Jail inmates grow vegetables, flowers, herbs, and – as of May – they’re harvesting honey from two beehives provided by a former inmate.

Northwestern's Paul CaraDonna studied the impact of increased temperatures on mason bees. (Jack Dykinga / Northwestern University)

Slight increases in temperature could lead to the extinction of bees in southwestern states in the near future, according to a new study from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Dan Parizek is a “Honeybee Rescuer." If you’ve got a beehive in the walls of your home, Dan will relocate it so it won’t be destroyed by an exterminator. With Colony Collapse Disorder destroying some 10 million beehives since 2007, Dan and others say we can’t afford to lose any more hives. Jay Shefsky has a profile. Read an article, watch a web extra video, and learn more about Colony Collapse Disorder from local scientists.

Dr. Corrie Moreau, Assistant Curator of Insects at the Field Museum and Karen Kramer Wilson, Living Invertebrate Specialist at The Chicago Academy of Sciences and Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, share their thoughts on the impact of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder.

Bee hives, hand cream and O'Hare Airport. We show you how one social enterprise is utilizing the sweet nectar of honey to give its employees a fresh start.

Beekeeping in Chicago is legal, relatively easy and increasingly popular. We take a look at the largely unseen world of rooftop bees, and the people who care for them.

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