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There aren't many large commercial bee yards in my area, so i'm not certain how to answer your question.
Every bee keeper I know has lost hives. My brother had as many as 8-10 and they are all dead right now. Another guy on my bee team is down about 50% of his hives right now. I've bounced between 2-7 live at any given time.
There seem to be multiple things killing them. Sometimes it's conditions like last year where it was too cold too late and a lot of them starved on top of a box of 90lbs of honey. It seems like varroa mites get a lot of them, and as I've mentioned before I'm convinced aphid spraying of soy beans is getting a lot of them.
I'm not a scientist or a scholar so I'm not an expert, but I don't think it's rocket science to figure out why colony collapse is a thing.
A lot of keepers ship their hives to a common place and then they are shipped south on a tour from Florida-texas and then to California for the almond groves. Bees from all over the country to go one place on trucks, interact, and a lot of them die.
To me it's like going to spring break cruise...long trip, there are girls there with the flu, one food worker with norovirus and a couple loose women with STDs.....and people wonder why there is shit on the walls of the ship when it gets back to port.
You can make as much money per hive doing pollination as selling honey...but I'm not sending my bees there, even if I get enough to make it an option.
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