Glossary
- Fungicides: A chemical that destroys fungus.
- Neonicotinoids: A family of pesticides that are sprayed onto plants that affect the bees health
- Pollination: A process that bees go through that fertilizes plants so that they grow.
- Endangered: Their species is at risk to die off
- Horticulture: The study of bees so that they can get a better understanding of them.
- Obscure: unknown; some say that the type of bees that are actually going extinct is an unknown kind in Hawaii.
What is Causing the Bees to Die?
People that study bees have found that there could be many reasons as to why the bees are dying to quickly, I found one research that shows it is the pesticides that are harming them. Scientist at the University of Maryland and the Department of Agriculture have found “A witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives.” Bees are actually bringing the pesticides like neonicotinoids back to their hives with them causing the poison to cause harm throughout their whole colony and affecting a lot more bees. That however is not the cause for CCD which has also drastically affected the bee population. Colony Collapse Disorder is “ The phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and the queen." These worker bees are going out and getting sick so they were taught not to come back so that the rest of the colony could survive, this is why so many were disappearing although they don’t know what the bees were actually getting sick with. People and animals would be affected tremendously if bees were to go extinct.
Will there still be Fruit and other Plants if Bees Die?
Bees have had a big impact on the growth of a lot of the plants we eat so without them we would definitely be affected. Some foods we would be without is apples, mangos, plums, strawberries, and many others. According to James Cave from The Huffington Post writes, “We’re talking about honeybees, and the truth is, they accomplish more than any human workaholic ever could — the plants affected by their pollination account for what’s estimated to be a third of all the food we humans eat (they also incidentally work themselves to death) —.” Plants need to be pollinated by bees which means they’re putting their pollen on the plants so that they can fertilize and grow. If we didn’t have bees many plants wouldn’t be able to grow resulting in people losing many of their plant based foods. Mattie Moate from the BBC says, “We may lose all the plants that bees pollinate, all of the animals that eat those plants and so on up the food chain. Which means a world without bees could struggle to sustain the global human population of 7 billion.” Not only would humans lose the plant based food but animals would too causing them to die and giving people even less food. Without bees we would be in serious trouble surviving and having enough food.
What are some things people can do to prevent bees from going extinct?
There are many things people can do to help stop the risk of bee extinction. With peoples help the amount of time bees have left could be extended. Elina Niño from The Conservation said, “Second, reduce your pesticide use for gardening and landscaping, and follow guidelines to reduce bee exposure. Finally, you can support local beekeepers by buying their honey.” Reducing your pesticide use for gardening would help keep the bees safe from those chemicals. Also buying honey from beekeepers help support bees and this way you aren’t buying from a company that may harm bees. An author from Mother Nature Network's wrote, “Seeding plants are a bee's best chance to stock up on food before the colder months. Making sure their larder is stocked will help them snap back once the weather warms.” By keeping some of the plants that bees get their food from you’re helping them gather food for when they need it another time. This will make sure that the bees are well fed and can come back in the spring to pollinate your crops. If people start to do these things then hopefully others will follow and it could leave a lasting impact on the health of Bees
Why do some say that bees aren't really dying?
Many articles have said that bees are endangered however there also some that say this isn’t true. Christopher Ingraham a writer at The Washington Post says, “But if you're part of the 60 percent of people who share stories without actually reading them, you might have missed an important detail: namely, that the newly endangered bees are a handful of relatively obscure species who live only in Hawaii.” Once the idea that bees were dying rapidly spread throughout social media it was hard to control the things people say about it. This causes misconceptions, and it has been said that it is all bees that are going extinct even though it is only a certain type. Honey bees are being mistaken for the types of bees that are actually becoming endangered which are a specific kind in Hawaii. In addition bees are able to lay 1,500 eggs or more per days Matt Miller, from the State of the Universe Science writes, “Even if honeybee keepers report losing as much 30 to 45 percent of their bees in a single year, this doesn’t actually mean the honeybee population will decline by that much.” Even though bees had been dying more quickly Queen bees lay a good amount of eggs per day that would make up for the ones that are lost. People were right in thinking that bees had been dying more frequently but if they had read into it they would realize that we may lose some bees but we gain a lot more each day so they’re not endangered.
If bees die off can we create artificial pollinators?
Throughout the past decade bees have died increasingly and if they are gone completely people will suffer tremendously because bees are responsible for pollinated many of the plants we use in our day to day lives. One questions going around is whether we could create artificial pollinators incase bees die off so we won’t be worried about how our plants will grow. Matthew Whiting, a professor at Washington State University for the department of horticulture, “To test his pollen agent by itself in a controlled environment, he covered several tree branches with nets to keep the bees out. In each of those trials, his sprays worked, but fell well short of natural pollination.” The spray would be a combination of water and pollin slurries stirred into a solution that can be sprayed on to plants instead of bees going around and pollinating everything. While there are artificial pollinators being tested, it has not been proven to be effective with the ingredients they’re using right now. In addition, there has actually been talk of a robotic bee that would serve as many benefits to people and food. Both Robert Wood, Radhika Nagpal and Gu-Yeon Wei, created a robotic bee, “Researchers have recently worked out the basics of a robotic bee which they say could be used to pollinate plants, search through disaster zones, or perform any variety of tasks where a small swarm of cooperative robots might come in handy.” These robotics bees would be very beneficial to people so that they don’t have to put real bees lives at risk and it helps pollinate all plants that were affected by bees if they were gone. Although there hasn't been a successful product for robotic bees they’re expecting them to be out in the wild anywhere from five to ten years from now.
Citations
- Schultz, Colin. "These Little Robot Bees Could Pollinate the Fields of the Future." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
- "No bees, but a lot of buzz about artificial pollination (video)." Good Fruit Grower. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
- "BBC - Future - What would happen if bees went extinct?" BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
- Cave, James. "The Terrifying Amount Of Food We'll Lose If Honeybees Die Off." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 Nov. 2015. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
- Ingraham, Christopher. "Believe it or not, the bees are doing just fine." The Washington Post. WP Company, 10 Oct. 2016. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
- "Deciphering the mysterious decline of honey bees." Phys.org - News and Articles on Science and Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
- Baskind, Chris. "5 ways to help our disappearing bees." MNN - Mother Nature Network. Mother Nature Network, 21 June 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.
- Miller, Matt. "Actually, Honeybees Are Not Dying Globally at an Alarming Rate." Slate Magazine. N.p., 29 July 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.