the beauty of bees
It seems like the newsworthiness of losing our bees ebbs and flows like so many other seemingly urgent issues (cough cough: climate change). In a recent conversation with someone I was reminded just how vital bees are to every single one of us. So I started reading. And now I am writing to you to share what I found and three things you can do to help our bees.
When you think of bees, you may think of the time you stepped on one at the beach, or how they were hovering in the grass as you picnicked, but do you really ever think about the importance of bees? Bees are responsible for 80% of worldwide pollination and directly responsible for pollinating 70 of the top 100 crops we eat — which make up about 90% of the worlds nutritional needs (1). Without bees, it’s clear we’d struggle to feed an already hungry world.
Environmentally, a collapse of bee populations would result in lack of pollination of both wild and domestic plants. Reduced pollination could have severe ripple on effects on other creatures that subsist on fruiting plants. With reduced prey, larger mammals that feed on birds would also start to decline (2). It’s a pretty overwhelming thought.
Beyond the social and environmental implications of declining bee populations, bees are essential to the health of crops which support the economy. In Australia, it’s estimated that bees contribute 4–6 billion to the economy. And some industries, like Australia’s almond industry relies entirely on our bees to grow (2). While looking at the economics of bees may be useful to ‘grasp’ the need for bees for our economies, it’s (as discussed above) important to equally consider the widespread social and environmental problems a global bee decline would cause.
So why are our bees dying? Well, it seems that winter die offs are a normal cycle of bee life, however, there are a variety of factors that is forcing populations to plummet well out of the usual winter die off. Human induced activities have created a plethora of threats our bees now face, most notably: pests and diseases, climate change, pollution, pesticies, and habitat loss (3).
And finally, some tips on how you can support bees!
After perusing some articles, I found this one from HoneyFlow to contain the most comprehensive and doable tips on how to support our bees. Here’s three tips from their list that are easy and accessible:
- Don’t use sprays: in a nutshell, sprays (like pollution) disarms bees ability to find flowers to pollinate.
- Plant some bee friendly plants! While it may not make sense to have bee friendly plants indoors, if you have any outdoor space such as a balcony, you could consider planting bee friendly plants (like Rosemary!).
3. Buy organic, local honey. I know it’s most likely more expensive, but it’s so important to support local bee farmers and the bees they support. For example, HoneyAustralia sells only Australian owned and made honey products that support a network of over 50 beekeepers.
While I am sure there are many more tips out there, I hope these have inspired you to think about the importance of our bees and do something! Even if it is doing a quick Google to 1) educate yourself or 2) sign a petition to pledge your support for our bees.
Thanks again for reading!
