Bets the govts don't give a damn. I know the UK govt have just dropped certain things from the relevent enviro/food/agriculture ministry's department that relates to beekeeping - they've basically slashed about a million pounds from the budget regarding the beekeeping inspectors - that's approx a 50% reduction in the numbers available to deal with problems. So a local keeper suspects s/he may have a problem with... oh... foul brood (either European or American - EFB/AFB) which is a nasty nasty thing - chances are there's no local inspector to double check whether the hive needs destroying or not. Maybe the beekeeper is new, and doesn't know... the stuff spreads... more hives die... no more honeybees.

As I said... it's only the efforts of the beekeepers that kept the honeybee in the UK from dying out completely - there are no longer any truly wild hives, they are pretty much all ex-swarms from hobbyists or commercial apiaries.