In a study of bee colonies covering 17 EU countries, the UK was found to be suffering one of the worst rates of honeybee colony deaths in Europe.
The study, called Epilobee, described 10% as an acceptable threshold for bee colony mortality - and Greece, Italy and Spain were among the countries with rates below that threshold.
But in the cold winter of 2012-13, 29% of honeybee colonies in the UK died, with only Belgium suffering a higher rate of losses (34%) of the 17 countries surveyed.
By contrast, only 5% of colonies in Italy were lost. Summer losses of colonies were also high in the UK, at 9.7%, with only France (14%) exceeding this.
The study did not look into the effects of such things as disease, habitat loss or pesticide use in honeybee decline. Neither did it examine why some countries were worse affected.
And the European commission went on to say that the study revealed mortality rates were better than had been expected.
"These data show that, while higher bee colony mortalities do exist in some parts of the EU, bees are neither disappearing, nor is colony collapse disorder taking place," the commission said.
The survey covered almost 32,000 bee colonies.
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