By Mac Bellingham
Bees are keystone species in our ecosystems as they help pollinate our plants… But why are they going extinct? In North America, since the 1970s, you are now 50% less likely to see them. This phenomenon has been given the name ‘colony collapse’. But without them, our world food supplies would decrease, and there would very likely be a food shortage!
Why are they going extinct in the first place? One of the main reasons is climate change. Due to climate change, temperatures have been rising, and many organisms are not adapted to this heat. Bees are one such species. They have been migrating towards colder regions as they perish from overheating in warmer regions. Bees are adapted to colder weather, not hot weather, due to their ability to generate heat while they fly Hence, as bees are facing increasingly warming temperatures, they are unable to adapt which results in these poor bees overheating.
Bees are also going extinct due to parasites. Varroa mites are one of the most destructive parasites. They are worldwide, occurring in almost every place bees do! They go into hives and eat all the young bees, causing the bee population to plummet. At first, the effects of these mites are barely noticeable, but over the course of a few years, their effects really start to reign in (Bee Aware).
There are other reasons why bees have been going extinct too, such as pesticides and habitat loss. Bees’ habitats have slowly been infiltrated and taken over by agriculture, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, as now bees are used to pollinate farmer’s crops, but when farmers use pesticides such as neonicotinoids, those bees can get poisoned by the toxicity and die (National Geographic).
How important are bees then? Bees are one of the most important pollinators in many different ecosystems. They pollinate different plants by first getting to eat pollen from different flowers, and they then spread the pollen from flower to flower in a symbiotic relationship. The bees benefit by getting a food source, and the plants benefit from the bee helping them reproduce. This process commonly happens on lots of farms too, not just wildflowers, so bees are important for our own lives too!
What would happen if bees went extinct? As mentioned before, bees are vital to pollination happening on farms, so if bees go extinct, what would happen? It would quickly ‘become a humanitarian issue’, as there would be many food shortages. If plants are not being pollinated, they won’t reproduce, and we would run out of food quite fast. Foods like almonds, apples, and berries would have diminishing supplies, leading to inflation and most people would not be able to access them.
Furthermore, there would be many economic problems. You may not realise it, but bees control lots of the world’s economy. ⅓ of all meals we eat come from bees in an indirect way. We discussed food shortages, but what about agricultural industries? Every year, 235-577 billion USD worth of food production relies on bees for a successful output (The Balance Money). Imagine the industry collapse, alongside the ‘colony collapse’. There would be many jobs lost, such as farming, transport, not to mention beekeeping. Bees don’t just give us food, they give us jobs.
Lastly, without bees, there would be an array of ecological problems. A ripple effect would happen, and many other species of plants and animals would go extinct too. Some plants, like the bee orchids, are only pollinated by bees, so if they went extinct, the bee orchid would become extinct. There would also be a decline in many different plants, as even if they are not pollinated exclusively by bees, they would undergo a significant decline in population. The decline in flora may also mean a decline in fauna, as reducing plants may decrease a certain species’ food source. This ripple effect can continue until multiple species are extinct.
How do you protect bees then? One way to save them is to protect bee habitats. Keeping trees and gardens safe, and making baths and beehives, are relatively easy ways to protect bees. Provide habitats by either encouraging people to do so or building them yourself. The other way to protect bees, as cliche as it may sound, is to simply spread the word! Tell others how to save bees, tell them the impact, and spread awareness. Raise money for beekeeping organisations. You can’t do it all yourself, we need other people to help us, so simply spread the word!