Bees are declining in population and it can make a huge environmental impact. What exactly would be affected? Just about everything.
1. Bees help pollinate crops. They make a huge impact on human food supplies, and without them, it’s argued that famine could be a possibility.
2. Bees make honey, beeswax, royal jelly; these products are useful for food, animal use, natural remedies etc. Honey is actually considered more effective at immediate cough relief than many medicines.
3. Bees make your food taste good. They help pollinate fruits and vegetables and give them flavor and also help extend their shelf life.
4. 1/3 of all vegetables and fruits require bees to pollinate them. Without them, we would be left with bananas and pineapples, among a few others.
5. Bees make cotton – Without cotton, there’d be no denim as well. We would not have towels, sheets, cotton for clothes, among many of cotton’s other uses.
6. Bees make coffee. Who wants to live in a world without tea or coffee?!
7. Bees make seed for pasture/feed grasses. Without them, there would be nothing for our livestock to eat.
8. Bees pollinate flowers and trees – 90% of wild plants would die without them. 70% of cultivated plants would die without them.
9. Loss of bees means loss of entire ecosystems. Without them, we lose plant, tree, and animal life.
10. Bees are disappearing; their population may be at 50% of what it was in the 1940s. This is huge. Conservationists are working to determine what the root causes are. Pesticides and global warming are considered probable.