John,

The first signs of trouble were the silent beehives.

Every spring, beekeepers look forward to the familiar buzz of colonies waking up from their winter slumber. But this year, beekeepers all around the country found hives full of thousands of dead bees instead.1

2025 has seen the largest mass bee die-offs on record, with losses skyrocketing up to a catastrophic 60% of hives on average.2 Among the main culprits are lethal bee-killing pesticides called neonicotinoids (or neonics for short).

But Home Depot is still selling neonics by the gallon. To save the bees, we're urging Home Depot to stop selling these bee-killing pesticides.

We're aiming to raise $150,000 by midnight on December 31 to help power our efforts to save the bees. Will you donate to Environment Colorado's End of Year Drive?

When beekeepers lose more than half of their colonies, they cross a critical threshold where they can't divide surviving bee colonies to wait for them to repopulate. Losing 60-70% consistently year after year would send bees into a "death spiral" from which they might never recover.3,4

And if honeybees are dying in droves, that's a bad sign for the dozens of native bee species in Colorado. Wild bees don't have humans to care for them -- they're on their own facing toxic pesticides.

That's why it's so urgent to get bee-killing pesticides off store shelves as soon as possible, to prevent these catastrophic losses from becoming an annual occurrence.

A bee doesn't know it's been poisoned until it's too late. Neonics attack the bee's nervous system, causing uncontrolled shaking, paralysis and death.5

Today, in large part due to the widespread introduction of neonics, 1 out of 4 native bumblebee species is on the brink of extinction.6

You can help us tackle bee-killing pesticides. Donate now to help save the bees.

Neonics are so highly toxic to insects, it would only take a teaspoon to kill a billion bees.7

They're 1,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT, even in small doses.8 Yet gallons upon gallons of neonics are sold by retailers, including Home Depot.

As the largest home improvement retailer in the world, Home Depot has a tremendous opportunity to lead the way and help save the bees before it's too late. It has already committed to selling plants that aren't treated with neonics. But it won't be easy to convince Home Depot to take the big step and get all neonic pesticides off its shelves, and that's where you come in, John.

Will you donate to help us reach our $150,000 goal? Donate by the end of the year to set us up for success in 2026.

Thank you,

Ellen Montgomery

1. Yvaine Ye and Nicholas Goda, "Honeybees are dying in record numbers. This scientist is racing to save them," CU Boulder Today, June 6, 2025.
2. Phoebe Weston, "'Could become a death spiral': scientists discover what's driving record die-offs of US honeybees," The Guardian, July 8, 2025.
3. Yvaine Ye and Nicholas Goda, "Honeybees are dying in record numbers. This scientist is racing to save them," CU Boulder Today, June 6, 2025.
4. Phoebe Weston, "'Could become a death spiral': scientists discover what's driving record die-offs of US honeybees," The Guardian, July 8, 2025.
5. Oliver Milman, "Fears for bees as US set to extend use of toxic pesticides that paralyse insects," The Guardian, March 8, 2022.
6. Jan Peterson, "Bumble Bee Atlas: A Nationwide Buzz," U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, May 2, 2023.
7. Helena Horton, "Government overturns Tory measure and bans emergency use of bee-killing pesticide," The Guardian, January 23, 2025.
8. Stephen Leahy, "Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides," National Geographic, August 6, 2019.

Your donation will be used to support all of our campaigns to protect the environment, from saving the bees and protecting public lands, to standing up for clean water and fighting climate change. None of our work would be possible without supporters like you. Environment Colorado may transfer up to $50 per dues-paying member per year into the Environment Colorado Small Donor Committee.