Why Bees are Important

12 Mar

There’s something comforting, almost magical about watching a bee buzz from a flower to another. However, you may have heard or read oh the news that bees are passing difficulties and are close to extinction.

You might think bees aren’t important and if they would really extinct, it won’t matter to us. But bees play a crucial role on Earth and some scientists claim that if they would indeed disappear completely, humanity would collapse too. Considering that all the bees in the whole world would die, all the plants in the world would die and we, humans would starve in the following years.

FOUR REASONS WHY BEES ARE IMPORTANT

1. WHY BEES ARE IMPORTANT = FOOD

One of the three meals we eat per day is possibly made by bees. Bees, both wild ones and the ones we keep in hives, known as commercial bees, are critical for pollinating plants that produce a huge range of food, including blackberries, almonds, and beans. The global value of insect pollination is estimated to be around 153 billion euros! Also, commercially reared bumblebees are important pollinators of tomato plants, among others. If bees die, the growing tomato will become too expensive and unproductive.

2. WHY BEES ARE IMPORTANT = BIODIVERSITY

Many creatures rely on bees for their own existence. For instance, animals that eat bees, such as birds and some reptiles, like lizards. Among that, as supporting the growth of trees, flowers, and other plants, bees provide shelter and food to other many creatures. By doing this, bees allow interconnection between different ecosystems and species to co-exist.

3. WHY BEES ARE IMPORTANT = WATCHDOGS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISTURBANCES

Various bee species have extremely precise habitat requirements and if that habitat undergoes a change, their populations will respond quickly. Those changes in their habitats can be indicators of environmental disturbances, including climate change.

4. WHY BEES ARE IMPORTANT = POLLINATION

When bees pollinate wildflowers, these flowers will grow strong and soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and human-caused emissions. This process is called carbon sequestration. Those wildflowers also important as their roots might bind the soil, presenting erosions and slow the seepage of water through the ground which helps to minimize floods.

Why Bees are Important: Pollination

Pollination is the transfer of pollen from a male part of the plant to a female part of the same plant. This relationship between flowers and their pollinators, such as bees, is called mutualistic. Mutualistic means that bees can get their food and nest building needs from a few different flowers and the same thing happens with flowers. Flowers can be pollinated by different bees.

This seemingly simple mechanism is directly responsible to produce 70% of fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts. This huge responsibility is accomplished by droves of commercial bees, reared by professional beekeepers for the sole purpose of being transported to farms to pollinate crops.

However, since 2006, these bees have been disappearing. The Colony Collapse Disorder, also known as pollination crisis, made 1/3 of the commercial bees abandon their hives. Some beekeepers have been reported that 90% of their bees have disappeared.

Why Bees are Important: What is Colony Collapse Disorder?

Hives have been founded completely abandoned. Evidence indicates declines and wild pollinators across North America and Europe. This mysterious disappearing has to do with wildflower meadows being taken away and hedges being ripped out to form bigger fields and pesticide use is massively increased. Other factors are cold and long winters, lack of genetic diversity in commercial bees and less variable nectar in the fields.

However, one main reason for this called Colony Collapse Disorder happening is due to the increase in the number of insecticides used by humans. Especially the neonicotinoids, a class within the insecticides. This neurotoxin is used to kill off insects and pests and to avoid they are eating the food. Unfortunately, insecticides are also harmful to the central nervous systems of bees when they consume the contaminated nectar. After a bee consuming the contaminated nectar and this being brought back to hives, the entire colony can be affected- This leads to mass confusion and disorientation for the bees.

Insects and parasites are also to blame for the Colony Collapse Disorder. Microscopic mites infect the tracheae, the breathing tubes, of bees. There, they lay their eggs and feed on the fluids of their victims, weakening them. Those parasites can live a whole life inside the bees. One of the deadliest parasites for bees is the Varroa destructor, the type of parasites that can only reproduce in honeybees’ hives.

Where inside a hive, the female mite enters a brood cell and lays eggs on the bee larva before the hives bees cover the cell with a wax capping. The eggs then hatch and the baby mites and their mother feed on the developing bee which makes the bee weaker to let the bee get out of the wax capping. Once the bee is out, the mites are also released and spread across the entire hive. After a few months of the mites’ growth in numbers, the beehives will collapse.

If this occurrence continues, entire food chains will be deeply harmed. For example, the almond tree that is pollinated by bees serves as food for farm cattle and chickens. In conclusion, fewer bees mean fewer almonds, which leads to a decline in livestock e consequently less milk, cheese, eggs, and meat. Not to mention that almonds are also used in baking, to make cereals and many other food products.

Not to mention that if bees disappear, alfalfa fields would also vanish since this plant depends on seed production and growing alfalfa seed depends on bees for pollination. Alfalfa fields are used to harvest hay for cattle, meaning that in addition to cows and chickens, also sheep would be threatened.

Without these animals we wouldn’t have milk for our morning coffee, our diet would consist of mostly corn, wheat, and rice and we wouldn’t have cotton for many pieces of clothing such as jeans and knit sweaters or towels and mattresses.