Saving bees is our BEESNEZZ!!
Imagine your perfect breakfast. Pancakes with some fresh berries covered in honey? Muesli with vanilla yoghurt and some dried fruit? Whatever it is, your breakfast likely contains the product of some of the most industrious and hard working insects on Earth. More than ⅓ of the world’s food is dependent on pollination, and more than 90% of the world’s leading crop types are also being pollinated by bees. Yet, our hardworking pollinators are dying, and in a fast rate. The IUCN European Red List of Threatened Species is listing as many as 24% of Europe’s bumblebee species as threatened with extinction.
The bees’ main task is to gather pollen as food for their young. Whilst collecting pollen some of it attaches to their bodies and gets passed between plants, thus fertilising the plants. Our food supply will therefore be much more insecure without the bees, not to mention poorer, duller and less nutritious. Natural ecosystems are also affected by the declining bee population; the close relationship between bees and the plants they pollinate has led to parallel declines in diversity in 75% of the plants preferred by bumblebees in recent decades, with 71% seeing decrease in their geographical range.
There are three main environmental stresses that are threatening the bee population: