Why bees are important to the environment

Is there an animal humanity feels more conflicted about than the bee? They’re kind of cute, right? And they can give us delicious things, like honey, and useful things, like beeswax. But they’ve also got those infamous stings. Bees can be a little scary. And in swarms, they can be deadly. So when reports hit the news about colony collapse disorder, some of us might have thought, well, what’s the big deal? Are the apiphobes right? Are bees worth the risk? What would happen if all the bees died? Unfortunately, we’d lose a lot more than baklava and organic candles if bees went extinct. There are more than 20,000 species of bee in the world. Together, they are probably the most important group of insect pollinators. If all these bees suddenly disappeared, there would be a vacuum in our ecosystems that would be very hard to fill. Many bees have co-evolved with flowers so that they are a fundamental part of those flowers’ lifecycles. These plants would be likely to go extinct along with the bees. Other plants that bees pollinate might survive with other pollinators, but they would be at a disadvantage. Blueberries and cherries rely on bees for up to 90% of their pollination — we could be looking at a dire situation in the pie industry. There are also animals that rely on bees for food. If we lose the bees, some of our most beautiful natural species could be next. All these changes would have ripple effects throughout ecosystems and into human society. Humanity probably wouldn’t starve without bees. Fortunately, many of our staple grains are pollinated by the wind. But nutritious fruits and vegetables could be lost, or become so expensive that few people could afford them. And eating healthy’s hard enough as it is. It’s hard to know just how such a huge change to the natural world would end. By disrupting a key link in the food chain, we could be changing our entire way of life. It’s lucky this is just a hypothetical, right? Well… colony collapse disorder is very real. Huge numbers of bees have died, and scientists believe human activity is to blame. The loss of bees has also been linked to the pesticides we use, and to man-made climate change. And some studies show that it’s not just bees. Insect numbers have dropped dramatically over the last few decades. Nearly half of all insect life may have died out in the last 35 years. Stingers are a pain, but humanity really does need our fuzzy flying friends. Bees and other bugs may be a little scary, but a world without them would be much scarier.