Why Are Bees Dying Out

If you didn’t know, honeybees are dying rapidly, and it is more serious than you might think. The decline of the honeybee is fairly complicated, as we cannot simply target one cause for the honeybee’s decreasing numbers. The combination of factors includes parasitic mites, Colony Collapse Disorder, harmful pesticides, poor nutrition, and habitat loss, all of which have contributed to the loss of droves of honeybees. This issue much more important than what the attention it is getting implies, as honeybees are an essential part to the agricultural society, and the human race in general. Not only are bees responsible for making honey, but also for pollinating a large portion of crops grown around the world. If we did allow honeybees to disappear,

The honey bee is vital to an estimated $117 billion annual production of crops through pollination within the United States more than a half of the food that humans consume has a correlation with the bee either directly or indirectly. The USDA reports the following food products would be immediately damaged if no bees were available to pollinate:

Since the late 1990s, beekeepers around the world have observed the mysterious and sudden disappearance of bees, and report unusually high rates of decline in honeybee colonies. Bees do more than just make honey! Bee transfer pollen and seeds from one flower to another, fertilizing the plant so it can grow and produce food. Cross-pollination helps at least 30 percent of the world's crops and 90% affects our food. The sweet fruits humans eat such as, strawberries, mangoes, grapes, apples, and bananas would not be the same taste wise as they are now. We simply couldn’t live in the same world if it weren’t for the bees.

Without bees, we would be struggling to find how to replace the major amount of food they helped produce.

There are many problems with bees currently. One of those problems includes the decline of the bee population and their hives. On the other hand there are many good things that are related to bees. An example of this is the pollination of plants by bees. If bees did not exist then there would be a drastic decrease in most of the food that people eat on a daily basis.

Bees pollinating crops produce every third mouthful of food we eat. Bees contribute to thirty- five Percent of global food production, 87 of the leading 115 food crops are dependent on animal pollinators, including bees. (The United States White House, 2014). Without bees pollinating plants, there would not be very many fruits or vegetables to eat, Bees transfer pollen between the male and female parts, allowing plants to grow seeds and fruit. In the last decade scientist and beekeepers have observed remarkable decline of bees, in the US alone 30% of the national bee population has disappeared and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the U.S. have

According to savebees.org, a corporation trying to spread awareness and help raise awareness, one in three bites of food we eat is thanks to bees. Think coffee, nuts, seeds, berries, fruits and vegetables (and even many of our oils). The honey bee population is decreasing and the effects are changing the world as we know it and one part that is being majorly effect is agriculture. Honey bee populations have been declining all over the world. Without honey bees the world as we know it would be totally changed.

An issue that is very important to me is the environment. More specifically, the issue of the declining bee population . As a vegetarian, animals are quite important to me. Honeybees and Bumblebees are pollinators. Pollinators fertilize plants . The bees have a crucial role in the growth of flowers and plants. of pollinate 80% of flowering crops, according to the Department of Agriculture. If bees were to disappear, we would lose a lot of our staple crops. This will induce national effects on America. The bee population is declining at an alarming rate. The main reason why this is happening is because of pesticides. Science with no respect to the environment and to people has catastrophic effects. But, I believe that we can reverse this problem.

Although bees may seem like small and insignificant creatures, they play a much greater role than people may think. Bees not only offer honey to the world but also provide venom which can treat some ailments such as joint pain. These are incredible attributes of the bee population, however, it is not the only thing that makes these magnificent creatures so imperative to the environment. Bees pollinate flowers, plants and other wild life which results in helping to grow many different fruits and vegetables. To think an insect so small, if eliminated, could impact civilization in such a destructive way is astonishing.

Bees provide us with pollination services for our agricultural crops. “Bees are the most important pollinators of our fruits and vegetables and flowers and crops like alfalfa hay that we feed our farm animals.” (Spivak) We rely on them so much that more than one-third of the world’s crop production is dependent on bee pollination. Without bees we wouldn’t have specialty crops like: asparagus, cantaloupes, cucumbers, pumpkins, cherries and blueberries. We also rely on the bee’s honey, “Made by bees regurgitating nectar and passing it back and forth in their mouths to one another before depositing and sealing it in a honeycomb, it’s intended use is for the bee’s winter food stores.” (Tucker) Honey is also valued in our economy, “Humans are quite fond of this amber liquid as well- the 2013 honey crop was valued at $317.1 million.” (Tucker) We need bees for their economic value just as much as we need their pollination for our crops. Honey

Bees have been around for about 100 million years, they have survived the dinosaurs and many other things so why are they dying right now? Albert Einstein once said “If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.” Now bees are doing what is called Colony Collapse disorder. This means that bees are disappearing more and more and it has been spreading across the US and Canada. But why?

According to The Silence of the Bees, almost everything humans consume can be traced back to bees--the amazing little creatures pollinate about one-third of all the United States crops. Everything we eat comes from plants in some way or another, and plants cannot be pollinated without the help of bees. What would happen if all the bees just vanished? Since Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), an epidemic in which worker bees disappear from their hives for seemingly no reason (Stankus, 2014) has come into existence, the bee’s disappearance seems to be becoming a dangerous reality.

The population of bees has depleted dramatically. The reason behind this is because us humans are changing the environment in a subtle action. We need bees because they pollinate 70 percent of the crops we eat. Otherwise the food we eat wouldn’t last as long or be as pulp and ripe, if it wasn’t for the bee.

The bees are dying, and if they do, we will be in a bad situation. We need to start changing how we treat them and make sure we give them the best care possible. Even though we have other pollinators they are our main pollinators. Without bees, we wouldn't have anything and it would be because of

Are you curious yet? They play a “crucial role on earth, some even claim that if they go extinct”, humanity as a whole would be next? Yup, that includes you, me and everything in between. “So with the dramatic decline in bee population I believe we have to begin thinking, what happens if all the bees die”?