Bermuda's bees are dying off in record numbers, with experts claiming that more than 50 percent of the insects have disappeared over the past 12 months.

The Department of Conservation Services is now meeting with beekeepers to assess the catastrophic loss veteran Randolph Furbert yesterday described it as a "national crisis".

The Island's crops are also suffering because of the dramatic fall. Devonshire farmer Roger Pacheco said he has seen a 25 percent decline in recent months.

Agricultural Officer for the Department of Conservation Services Tommy Sinclair said there was "no simple explanation" for what is taking place.

"In November of last year we had an invasive mite called varroa appear in Bermuda. It's probably the most devastating pest known in beekeeping. It's caused deaths in tens of thousands of hives around the world."

Additional factors had also stressed the bees, Mr. Sinclair said.

A dry spring and summer meant there was little food for the insects; hives were plagued by infestations of ants and Hurricane Igor burnt the Mexican Pepper shrubs bees rely on for food at this time of year.

"This year has been very poor in many respects. Out of the hives we've surveyed, we're seeing losses of over 50 percent," he said.

Mr. Furbert has been a beekeeper for 38 years. He agreed that the insects suffered as a result of ants, which have appeared in huge numbers across the Island this summer.

"When we had the hurricane two weeks ago, the ants took advantage of the situation," he said. "I've never seen such a plague of ants in Bermuda before. They're invading the hives and driving the bees out."

He said he and other beekeepers have been working "feverishly" to get on top of the issue.

"We're in the process of trying to figure out what's going on. We've lost a good bit of our stocks and it's affecting crops. Bees pollinate crops, and if you have no bees there's no honey and no food."

Mr. Pacheco, of Pacheco & Sons Farms, estimated his end-of-summer crop of cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers fell as a direct result of the loss of plant-pollinating bees.

"We've seen a huge difference here. At the beginning of the summer it wasn't so bad. With the drought we had a lot of bees drinking at our drip irrigation. But you hardly ever see a bee now. People tend to take them for granted but they have no idea how important bees are."

Bermuda's bee crisis is part of a global phenomenon. Increasingly over the last decade, both wild and domestic bees have begun to die off in large numbers worldwide.

The US has reported a loss of one-third of its colonies in the last four years due to a combined factor of parasites and a bee virus.

In Europe, the varroa parasite has been spreading for six decades. The blood-sucking mite has since gone worldwide.

Both islands of New Zealand are now infected, and the Australian bee industry is said to be preparing for the attack.

In China, where pesticide use has also contributed to the collapse of bee colonies, hand-pollination of fruit trees has had to replace the insects. The practice has been commonplace in much of the country for over a decade.

Bermuda remained disease-free until the summer of 2009. It had been hoped that local bees could be exported to other countries.

The US Department of Agriculture is now developing medicines for the parasitic mite. However it is feared that bees in many parts of the world may be too stressed to recover.