Honeybees pollinate more than 90 crops including: apples, nuts, broccoli and strawberries. One-third of our diet comes from plants pollinated by insects. And honey bees account for 80 percent of those pollinating insects.

Something is killing the honey bees off at alarming rates. Tens of millions of honey bees across 22 states disappearing. Scientists are scrambling to find out why.

It's called Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists at the University of Tennessee don't believe it's really hit the state yet.

"You can't convince me of that because if I go from 80 colonies to 12, I've never seen anything like that," says scientist and bee keeper Howard Kerr. 

He's been keeping bees and selling honey for more than four decades. "I can't speak for the rest of Tennessee. But I can tell you it's right here in my bee yard."

Kerr showed 6 News several racks full of honey bees, busy at work. But one day, he came out to find dozens of his hives completely empty.

"You go out one day, raise the lid, there's plenty of bees," Kerr explains. "You go out the next day and it's an empty hive with not one bee in it, nothing."

Humans can live without the honey that bees make. But bees play a much bigger role in the food chain. Without them, crops suffer.

Commercial bee keeper Joe Tarwater says, "Your dinner table will get bare. You're looking at all your fruits, the cucumbers, the watermelons will be deformed."

Tarwater has 500 colonies, millions of bees that he carries all over the South pollinating other farmers' crops. "All the bee keepers that are losing bees are commercial people." That's why Tarwater is concerned and he says you should be, too.

Tarwater says if honey bees continue to die off, the beef industry could begin to suffer next. "If this clover in your yard in one year isn't pollinated, it's no count," he explains. "It's gone and it's a source of food for cows. Then you may not have the steak you want at the restaurant Saturday night."

Howard Kerr isn't sure if the bees he has left will survive. "The bottom line is that colony collapse disorder is as big a mystery as it was when we first found out about it."

There are many theories about what's causing the collapse of bee colonies. Among them are strong pesticides and even stress.

Congress is holding special talks this week to discuss how to best address the problem.

Bee experts say the U.S. has seen outbreaks of disease among bees before, but nothing like this.

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