bees despawning in single player and realms

bees keep disappearing. I first noticed it on a realm with friends that all our bees were gone. even hives we discovered in the while had no bees. then I playing in a single player world and I had bees but then I went off exploring and when I came back I went from about 7 bees to 1 bee. I thought it was just relqms at first but it's clear that this is affecting all levels of the game.