Save the bees
Slowly but surely, bees have been dying at a rapid increase. Their population has been reported as declining ever since the 1990's. The number of bee colonies have declined as much as 90% since 1962.
Bees are dying out mainly due to pesticides. Lots of food industries have been using plant seeds coated neurotoxins, designed to help the plants grow faster. The neurotoxins move through the plant as it grows, and intoxicates the bees when they pollinate it. This makes them extremely sick, and most of the time causes them to die.
The bee population has also been decreasing due to habitat loss, humans being the main cause of this. As humans continue to expand their cities and communities, trees and plants will need to be cut down to allow space for construction sites. Cutting down a tree is cutting down a honeybees habitat, and due to human activities, several bees will not be able to survive.
To put into perspective, a single bee does so little pollination, it only makes up 3 bites of food, and only produces about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. This sounds like nothing, but collectively one bee colony produces 60 to 100 pounds of honey each year. The bee pollination makes up to 90% of the worlds daily nutrition. (GoldenBlossomHoney)
Plants can't survive without being pollinated, and bees can't survive without pollinating. Pollination is how bees consume their food, and by doing it they are unintentionally keeping the ecosystem alive. In several orchids and farms, people have been doing the pollination themselves with paint bush-like devices, because there simply aren't enough bees in the area to keep the trees and plants alive.
As GreenPeace states, "Furthermore, wild bee habitat shrinks every year as industrial agribusiness converts grasslands and forest into mono-culture farms, which are then contaminated with pesticides. To reverse the world bee decline, we need to fix our dysfunctional and destructive agricultural system."
Since we've been losing our bee population so rapidly, what can we do to help? The most beneficial thing we can do, is to simply plant bee-friendly flowers, and not contaminate them. Bees need to have access to good nutrition in order to survive. Not only is planting flowers important for the bees, but it's also important for the environment because they produce oxygen.
Bees are a keystone species, and if we lose bees, we lose humanity too. They do more than just producing honey, as they are the key to food production because they pollinate crops. Plants can't live without being pollinated, and therefore they wouldn't be able to produce any food.
Citations:
Asian Scientist Newsroom. "What's The Buzz?" Asian Scientist, 2 Sept. 2016,
www.asianscientist.com/2016/09/in-the-lab/china-bee-colony-losses/.
Accessed 11 Dec. 2019.
"Honey Bees." Golden Blossom Honey, www.goldenblossomhoney.com/
education_bees.php. Accessed 11 Dec. 2019.
Rubinoff, Daniel. "Bees Gone Wild." scientificamerican, Daniel Rubinoff, Jan.
2018, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/bees-gone-wild/. Accessed
11 Dec. 2019.
"Save the Bees Be the solution to help protect bees in crisis." GreenPeace,
www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/. Accessed 11
Dec. 2019.
 |
| Scientificamerican |
The bee population has also been decreasing due to habitat loss, humans being the main cause of this. As humans continue to expand their cities and communities, trees and plants will need to be cut down to allow space for construction sites. Cutting down a tree is cutting down a honeybees habitat, and due to human activities, several bees will not be able to survive.
To put into perspective, a single bee does so little pollination, it only makes up 3 bites of food, and only produces about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. This sounds like nothing, but collectively one bee colony produces 60 to 100 pounds of honey each year. The bee pollination makes up to 90% of the worlds daily nutrition. (GoldenBlossomHoney)
Plants can't survive without being pollinated, and bees can't survive without pollinating. Pollination is how bees consume their food, and by doing it they are unintentionally keeping the ecosystem alive. In several orchids and farms, people have been doing the pollination themselves with paint bush-like devices, because there simply aren't enough bees in the area to keep the trees and plants alive.
 |
| HuffPost |
As GreenPeace states, "Furthermore, wild bee habitat shrinks every year as industrial agribusiness converts grasslands and forest into mono-culture farms, which are then contaminated with pesticides. To reverse the world bee decline, we need to fix our dysfunctional and destructive agricultural system."
 |
| AsianScientist |
Bees are a keystone species, and if we lose bees, we lose humanity too. They do more than just producing honey, as they are the key to food production because they pollinate crops. Plants can't live without being pollinated, and therefore they wouldn't be able to produce any food.
Citations:
Asian Scientist Newsroom. "What's The Buzz?" Asian Scientist, 2 Sept. 2016,
www.asianscientist.com/2016/09/in-the-lab/china-bee-colony-losses/.
Accessed 11 Dec. 2019.
"Honey Bees." Golden Blossom Honey, www.goldenblossomhoney.com/
education_bees.php. Accessed 11 Dec. 2019.
Rubinoff, Daniel. "Bees Gone Wild." scientificamerican, Daniel Rubinoff, Jan.
2018, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/bees-gone-wild/. Accessed
11 Dec. 2019.
"Save the Bees Be the solution to help protect bees in crisis." GreenPeace,
www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/. Accessed 11
Dec. 2019.
I think that this is a really interesting topic, and that people would never have thought about it. It's amazing to hear that a little bee can produce that much honey in a year. You did a good job including the quote into your writing.
ReplyDeleteAn important topic with some good suggestions. What are bee friendly plants?
ReplyDeleteAlso, be sure to have internal citations for all of your information in your post.
Basically any plant is healthy for bees as long as they're not contaminated, but some of the best plants for bees are honeysuckles, sunflowers, strawberries, and crocuses.
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