Recently my bees were foraging on my neighbour’s Agave flowers. Many were falling on the ground and dying, I also found many dead bees in front of my hives.
Is this an observation made by other beekeepers?
Agaves are not generally toxic to bees. My bees love their flowers and forage on them whenever they can. Could the flowers have been sprayed with some insecticide? 
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Hi Peter, I doubt Agave flowers are the problem, there are quiet a few in a nearby garden that my bees forage on with no ill effect that I have noticed on the couple of hives I have at my home and they would be the first effected as my apiary in 3k’s away.
If there is an increase in mortality my first thought would be poisoning by insecticide or a herbicide being sprayed on something in flower.
Cheers
Thanks for your observations. The I read that the sap from the plant can be irritant but found nothing about effect on bees. Apparently in the US they have used the sap to feed bees.
I guess there may have been some poison applied to the plant but my neighbours seem concerned about the bees welfare so it seems a bit of an odd situation.
We removed the flowers and the bee fatalities ceased
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