Bees and other animal pollinators are a key component of plant reproduction in agricultural and natural ecosystems. Despite their importance as pollinators, however, both wild and managed bee populations have been declining since the mid-twentieth century, representing a growing threat to global food security and biodiversity. Such concerns have driven an intense research effort to understand the causes and consequences of bee decline, which suggest that this complex, global phenomenon cannot be addressed without collaboration between public and private stakeholders (Vanbergen 2013). The book ‘The business of bees: an integrated approach to bee decline and corporate social responsibility’, is a way of sharing knowledge necessary for such collaboration.