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Nearly one-third of bee colonies perished last winter. A new study suggests the sudden decline in the population could take a big economic toll on the agricultural economy – far beyond declines in honey production.

Talk about a buzzkill. U.S. honey bee populations are continuing to dwindle and it could have drastic effects on agriculture The Wall Street Journal reports. A study released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 31 percent of bee colonies died this past winter—about 800,000 bees.The report is the latest in a serious of mass honey bee deaths reported over the past several years. A decline was first reported by beekeepers in 2006 and is attributed to multiple factors such as parasites, mal-nutrition, disease and parasites.

Mayer meets with execs.

Apparently the SNL archives were just a first step. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has reportedly met with top executives at Hulu to explore buying the subscription video service. Hulu, which is owned by News Corp., Disney, and Comcast and has roughly $300 million in debt, is also being pursued by the Chernin Group and Guggenheim Partners. The move by Yahoo comes after its failed bid to buy France Télécom’s Dailymotion in April.

Read it at All Things D

Japan Inc. comeback?

This may be the year Toyota gets its groove back. The world’s largest automaker tripled its profits year over year to $9.7 billion. A weakened yen (down 30 percent since last September), company reductions, and strong sales in North America powered the Japanese company to its strongest year in five years.

Read it at The New York Times

Mikey Schaefer, via Patagonia

Patagonia has proven that charging a premium for ecofriendly products is a solid business model. Now it’s starting an internal venture fund to seed likeminded green businesses.

Patagonia, the clothing company that is equal parts high-end outdoor apparel retailer and environmental advocate, has made a practice of giving one percent of its profits to nonprofit grass-roots environmental organizations. Now it’s looking to boost its profits by investing in for-profit sustainable businesses. On Monday the company launched $20 Million and Change, an in-house venture that will invest in startup businesses involved with food, water, energy or waste.

By crisis-era deal.

They say never to go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. In 2009, at the nadir of the crisis for automaker Chrysler, a desperate Treasury Department team led by Steve Rattner put together a deal for Chrysler that left Italian automaker Fiat with a 20 percent stake, with the option to buy another 50 percent. While the U.S. and Canada have sold their combined stakes to Fiat, the union’s health-care trust owns the remaining 68 percent. Surprise, surprise—the union and Fiat are duking it out in court over rival valuations of the company. The difference: $6 billion.

Read it at The New York Times

For hedge titan Paulson.

That’s got to hurt! Billionaire John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. hedge fund’s $700 million gold fund lost 27 percent in April as the price of gold dropped 17 percent over two weeks. The jaw-dropping one-month decline leaves a year-to-date loss of 47 percent. Adding salt to an open wound, a majority of the money in the fund is reportedly Paulson’s own cash. 

Read it at Reuters

Manchester United's manager Sir Alex Ferguson on April 14. (Jon Super/AP)

After 26 seasons as manager.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the biggest figures in British soccer, announced Wednesday that he will retire after 26 seasons. During his reign, Man U has won 38 trophies, including 13 league titles, two Championship League crowns, five Football Association Cups, and four League Cups. His final game will be against West Brom—his 1,500th as manager. Ferguson is considered the most successful manager in the history of British soccer, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1999. Oddsmakers are putting Everton’s David Moyes and Real Madrid’s José Mourinho as Ferguson’s most likely successors.

Read it at BBC News

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JPMorgan Chase is one of America’s largest and most highly regarded banks. But in the past few years, it has paid out several billion dollars to settle lawsuits from consumers and regulators.

The nice thing about being in the financial services world is that you never really have to say you’re sorry. Screw over customers, botch foreclosures, run afoul of important regulations, and violate some important rules—and the worst you’ll have to do is pay some fines or settlements. It’s a cost of doing business, even for America’s most highly regarded banks.Take JPMorgan Chase. The New York–based firm, under the leadership of hard-charging CEO Jamie Dimon, emerged from the financial crisis in much better shape than many of its rivals.

Photo Illustration: NWDB. Photo: PeskyMonkey/Getty; AP.

Jamie Dimon is CEO and chairman at JPMorgan Chase, and pressure is mounting for the bank to split the roles. Never gonna happen, writes Daniel Gross—never mind those billions in fines.

Jamie Dimon, the gruff, silver-haired chief executive officer and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, is facing an unlikely challenge.The big bank has stuck to the practice of having its CEO also serve as chairman of its board of directors—a circumstance in which the guy who runs the company also runs the entity that is responsible for overseeing, hiring, and firing the CEO, and which has become increasingly unpopular at publicly held companies.With a showdown coming up on May 21, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that some big shareholders are threatening to withhold their votes.

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The Yahoo chief’s perceived missteps may rivet the media, but she’s not concerned with negativity, she told Wired’s Business Conference. And the working from home flap? She’s over it, reports Nina Strochlic.

Marissa Mayer isn’t listening to her critics. In February, the young CEO drew fire and ignited a debate after barring Yahoo employees from working outside the office. “I really didn’t mean for it to become an industry narrative about whether people could successfully work from home,” she said with a hint of bemused frustration at Wired’s Business Conference on Tuesday. “It’s gotten taken to hyperbole.”The 37-year-old Mayer has attracted all kinds of criticism and speculation since her Yahoo appointment last summer made her the youngest head of a Fortune 500 company.