Bees and Pollination: How Important is it?
Have you ever stopped to think: “what would happen if all of the honey bees died?” Chances are it may have never even crossed your mind. How important are the honeybees and their pollination? We often think of bees as nuisances that are just around to drive us to insanity or take the life-giving animals for granted. The amazing qualities of these little insects are often overlooked.
Why are the honeybees so important? Honeybees are the most substantial pollinators in the world and they pollinate about one-third of the world’s food supply. Honeybees pollinate 70% of commercial horticulture and agricultural crops. If the bees died, within five years the human and animal populations would be diminished substantially due to starvation.
For years, the number of bees has been declining. Since 2000 New Zealand has lost around 35% of their beehive colonies. In the last 10 years, European and American beekeepers have reported that they were losing 30% or more of their hive colonies. Between 1988 and 1993 about 2.5 million of the 5 million beehive colonies were lost in America alone and that number is still increasing.
There are different speculations about how the bees are dying but many are pointing towards pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency or EPA has approved pesticides that kill bees call neonicotinoids these include pesticides like clothianidin, thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, and sulfoxaflor all of which are highly toxic or lethal to the bees. In the US, these harmful pesticides are used on the majority of nut, grain, vegetable, and fruit crops. If the pesticides don’t kill the bees straight off the effects can cause the bees to lose their way back to the hive and starve. Beekeepers have been trying to notify the EPA about the pesticides they are approving and their effect on the bees and what this could mean in the future. With no avail, the beekeepers have decided to take drastic measures and sue the EPA.
Another reason the bees are dying is due to mites. The deadly Varroa destructor mite is a parasite the lives on the outside of a bee and sucks its blood to gradually kill it. Since the late 1970s, when the Varroa destructor arrived in Europe, Europe’s feral bees have become extinct and forty percent of honeybees hive colonies have been lost. The good news is that Australian bees have not yet had issues with the mite. The bad news is that they have no resistance to the deadly Varroa mite and just one infected bee landing in Australia could wipe out the whole colony. The mites can be kept in check by certain chemicals but after time, they develop immunity to the chemical formula being used so new formulas constantly need to be created.
There are many ways you can help the bees just by simply getting involved. If you want to help preserve the bees and the future for our descendants and us a great way to start is by finding a non-profit organization involved in helping the bees and donating or even signing a petition. Don’t let the commercial bee producers be the only ones with bees, start raising your own. Not only will you be helping the save the honeybees, but gain some delicious honey of your own too! Even small things help like planting clover and other plants bees like to drink the sweet nectar from. Also, do a little research and try to eliminate the use of garden pesticides that are harmful to the bees, instead you can use organic or natural remedies. Finally, raise awareness about the problem and inform people about how they can help. Because without our tiny little buzzing friends the world as we know it might cease to exist.