HOUSTON – Bees may be a nuisance to your house, but they are literally keeping us alive.

“Oh buzzing, horrible buzzing,” Gay Arnold, owner of a bee-infested abode, said.

They’re in Arnold’s home in force, but elsewhere, bees are vanishing.  But why? 

Scientists at the University of Virginia think they’ve found a clue.

“If we don’t save the bees, man, we’re going to starve to death,” Claude Griffin said.

Two-hundred years ago, a bee could smell a flower’s scent from 3,000-4,000 feet away. 

But the university’s research shows today it’s down to less than 1,000 feet.

Griffin says the bees he’s seen lately have seemed fatigued or lost in a fog.

“It’s almost like a façade, an illusion, a mirage for him to find out where he’s going to go, and yeah, pollution plays a part in it,” he said.

The study singled out Houston as one of the worst cities in the country for bee navigation.

But at least one Houston beekeeper thinks there may be more to it than that.

He says bees generally don’t like to fly more than 900 feet to get where they’re going.  Plus, they can use ultraviolent light to find flowers, too.

So while the bees can’t stay in homes like Arnold’s, they definitely need somewhere else to go.

“I’m sympathetic to them, as long as they’re not around me,” Arnold said.

But it seems the smog is keeping them from getting there.