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Claire Graham

Dr. Sterling

ENGL 1302.2110

2 July 2017

The Buzz About Saving the Bees

In recent years, the bee population has rapidly declined. In fact, in early 2017 the United

States placed the rusty patched bumblebee on the endangered species list (Service). While bees

used to be a prominent species, the past two decades have wreaked havoc on the population; the

number of bees has seen a decline of 88 percent since the 1990s (Kennedy). Since 2006, the

commercial honeybee population has undergone a 40% loss, while the UK reports a loss of 45%

of their commercial honeybee population since 2010 (Why We Need To Save The Bees). The

main causes of the decline are the bees loss of natural and semi-natural habitats, the increased

use of harmful pesticides, and the mysterious colony collapse disorder (Bees in Decline). As

the bee population becomes jeopardized, so does humanity. Humans are extremely dependent on

the bees, and without the pollinators, mankind will have to adjust significantly. Bees act as a

natural pollinator for wild plants, have an economic benefit, and directly impact a third of the

food consumed by humans. For humanity to continue thriving as it is, it is imperative to save the

bees.

One leading cause of the shrinkage of the bee population is the loss of their natural

habitats. In the years since the 1970s, the bees have lost nearly 200 miles of their historic wild

range. . . a trend that is continuing at about five miles a year, (McDonnell). While other species

are also moving away from the southernmost parts of their historical homes, the other animals

are moving northward, whereas the bee population is simply compressing (McDonnell). Recent
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construction and development has transformed the bees habitats into highways, houses, strip

malls, office complexes, and industrial parks. Urbanization not only directly removes bee habitat,

but it also isolates and fragments the land in which bees are trying to travel across, (Habitat

Fragmentation). These pollinators are losing their habitat and are not colonizing new areas and

establishing new populations fast enough, (Bees Habitat Loss). The declining habitat forces

the bees to compete amongst each other, causing the pollinators population to dwindle even

more.

The most direct threat to the shrinking bee population is insecticides (Bees in

Decline). The use of a group of insecticides called neonicotinoids has been attributed to

causing part of the shrinkage of the bee population (Philpott). While these neonicotinoids do not

kill bees directly, the pesticides kill the pollinator population over a long period of time by

making the bees more susceptible to other conditions, such as poor nutrition and pathogens,

(Philpott). Additionally, by attacking the queen bee, these neonicotinoids hurt the bees ability to

reproduce, which is detrimental to the already dwindling population (Dengler). These pesticides

easily dissolve in water, making it easy for the neonicotinoids to find their way into waterways

via agricultural runoff, which can take the pesticides miles away where they can seep into the

stems, leaves, pollen, and nectar of various plants (Dengler). Once bees encounter the

neonicotinoid, the bees contaminate the other plants that they pollinate, including willow trees,

clovers, and wild flowers (Tsvetkov). Even the limited amount of pesticide transferred by runoff

or cross-pollination is enough to harm a bee population (Dengler).

Beginning in 2006, beekeepers noticed that the majority of the worker bees within the

colony would vanish, leaving behind the queen, nurse bees to care for the remaining immature

bees, and plenty of food this phenomenon soon became known as Colony Collapse Disorder
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(Colony Collapse Disorder). Once the hive has been affected, it will begin to die because

without the mature worker bees to bring nectar and pollen back to the hive, it collapses

(Braun). Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) translates into thousands of dead colonies and

millions of dead bees. In a country where honey bees contribute billions of dollars in added

revenue . . . these bee losses cannot be taken lightly (Ellis). Although many theories abound

about why bees are abandoning their hives in such large numbers, nothing is definitive; in an

extensive study of 61 factors, no single stressor stood out as the primary cause (Bee Colony

Collapse Disorder).

Bees play an important role in the ecosystem, most notably with wild plants. By being

pollinators, the bees help in maintain natural plant communities and ensuring the production of

seeds in most flowering plants (CANR). Around 90% of wild plants, such as wildflowers and

clover, need animal-mediated pollination to reproduce, and thus other ecosystem services and

the wild habitats providing them also depend directly or indirectly on insect pollinators

(Bees in Decline). The pollination of these wild plants is critical because besides being nice to

look at, plants produce oxygen we need to breathe, provide a habitat for a number of animals,

help control the worlds water supply, and regulate its climate, (Top 5 Reasons Why You

Should Protect Bees and Other Pollinators ). In addition to the plants pollinated by the bees are

often a source of food for insects, birds, and small mammals, which in turn can impact the

population of the larger predators who feed on the animals directly dependent on the bees

(Natural living). By saving the bees, the wild plants and the animals dependent on the plants can

continue to thrive.

Bees are essential to the agriculture industry; many large-scale growers rent mobile

honeybee hives from commercial beekeepers for pollination purposes (Philpott). In areas of
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North America, East Asia, and Europe, the value of pollination can be as high as $1,500 US

dollars per hectare (Bees in Decline). In addition to the bees themselves being beneficial to

the economy, the fruits, vegetables, and nuts pollinated by the bees have an enormous economic

impact; it is estimated by a study at Cornell University that the value of honey bee pollination

exceeds $14 billion annually (Bee Benefits to Agriculture). As the size of the bee population

shrinks, so does the amount of food that can be pollinated by them, forcing agriculturalists to

either find costly replacements to these pollinators or allow the amount of food produced to

decrease. Saving the bees is important to the economy because entire industries depend upon the

bees and their pollination.

The disappearance of the bees is noteworthy because close to 100 crop species . . . rely

to some degree on pollination services provided by this one species (Schober). One third of the

food humans consume is directly affected by these pollinators; honey bees pollinate fruits,

vegetables, and nuts (Save the Bees). As the bee population continues to decline, so does the

amount of food pollinated by them, which then leads to a loss of the species that eat the plants

pollinated by bees; for example, bees pollinate some fodder crops for meat and dairy

production (Bees in Decline). Even as the bee population dwindles, the world moves

progressively towards more crops that are dependent on bee pollination (Bees in Decline).

With each year, farmers are being tasked with feeding more people with less land, meaning that

each crop planted needs to produce as much as possible (Pollination Facts). Since crops being

planted need to operate at their maximum efficiency, it makes sense for these plants to be

pollinated by bees. The amount and the quality of the usable food produced by a crop is largely

dependent on the pollination of bees; crop yield and quantity would be greatly reduced without
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honey bee pollination (Pollination Facts). It is important to save the bees because they

provide mankind with a large portion of the food that gets eaten.

It has been said that a world without bees would become a world without human beings,

and although a world without bees would create additional challenges for humanity, it would not

be impossible to live without the bees. For example, people are looking at way to pollinate

without bees, either manually or with the help of other pollinators, such as butterflies and birds.

Not all the plants pollinated by the bees are dependent on the bees; and without pollination, these

plants are still capable of producing, although at a smaller scale (Palmer). Some people argue

that because it is possible to live in a world without bees, that resources should not be spent on

the bees, and that money that the government spends on saving the bees should be spent on more

pressing matters (Giaimo).

While it is technically possible to pollinate food without the bee population, it is not

practical. The diminishing bee population leaves crops to be laboriously pollinated by hand.

Cross pollinating is a labor intensive and financially draining task, as it is estimated that it

would cost more than $300 billion annually worldwide to use human labor instead of the bees to

pollinate (Natural Living). Although many other animals are capable of being pollinators, bees

are the predominate and most economically friendly group of pollinators . . . even where it is not

an essential requirement for reproduction, many tend to reproduce more seed and bigger fruit

when bees transfer pollen among them (Bees in Decline). If no pollination occurs, only 28 of

the nearly 100 crops that bees pollinate are capable of surviving (Palmer). Without the bee

population to painstakingly pollinate forest, parks, meadows, and shrublands time, energy, and

resources would likely not be spent on what some would consider a non-necessity, such as the

wild plants; without pollination, the flora and life they support cannot survive (Service).
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If the current trend continues, the bee population is on its way to becoming extinct. This

could be disastrous to those who rely on the bees, whether be dependent upon the wild plants, the

money generated by the pollinators, or like most people, the food that the bees pollinate. Without

taking steps to protect the bees and bolster their population to be thriving once again, humans

and the world that they are accustomed to will suffer tremendously. A world without the bees

would be a world lacking flora, a world with a damaged economy, and a world with significantly

less variety of food to offer.

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Works Cited

Bee Benefits to Agriculture. Ag Research Magazine, Mar. 2004,

agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/ar/archive/2004/mar/form0304.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder. National Pesticide Information Center, npic.orst.edu/envir/ccd.html.

Accessed 6 July 2017.

Bees Habitat Loss: Study Shows How Climate Change Hurts Pollinators. Time, Time,

time.com/3951339/bees-climate-change/. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Bees in Decline. sos-bees.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/BeesInDecline.pdf. Accessed 6 July

2017.

Braun, David Maxwell. What We Now Know and Don't Know About Honeybees and Colony

Collapse Disorder. National Geographic Society (Blogs), 27 Sept. 2016,

voices.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/27/what-we-now-know-and-dont-know-about-

honeybees-and-colony-collapse-disorder/. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Colony Collapse Disorder. EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 18 Apr. 2017,

www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Dengler, Roni. Neonicotinoid Pesticides Are Slowly Killing Bees. PBS, Public Broadcasting Service,

30 June 2017, www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/neonicotinoid-pesticides-slowly-killing-bees/.

Accessed 6 July 2017.

Ellis, Jamie. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in Honey Bees. EDIS New Publications RSS,

Entomology and Nematology, 1 Oct. 2013, edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in720. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Giaimo, Cara. One Woman's Campaign Against America's Bee Fixation. Atlas Obscura, 7 Aug.

2016, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-case-against-honeybees. Accessed 6 July 2017.

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Habitat Fragmentation. Bee Informed!, 15 Nov. 2012, beependent.wordpress.com/habitat/. Accessed

6 July 2017.

Kennedy, Merrit. U.S. Puts Bumblebee On The Endangered Species List For 1st Time. NPR, NPR,

11 Jan. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/11/509337678/u-s-puts-first-

bumblebee-on-the-endangered-species-list. Accessed 6 July 2017.

McDonnell, Tim. Here's Why All the Bees Are Dying. Mother Jones, 23 June 2017,

www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/climate-change-killing-bumblebees/. Accessed 7

July 2017.

Palmer, Brian Would a World Without Bees Be a World Without Us? NRDC, 15 Dec. 2016,

www.nrdc.org/onearth/would-world-without-bees-be-world-without-us. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Philpott, Tom. The Mystery of Bee Colony Collapse. Mother Jones, 24 June 2017,

www.motherjones.com/food/2013/07/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-fungicides/. Accessed 6 July

2017.

Pollination Facts. Pollination Facts - American Beekeeping Federation,

www.abfnet.org/page/PollinatorFacts. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Pollination. Native Plants and Ecosystem Services, www.canr.msu.edu/nativeplants/pollination/.

Accessed 6 July 2017.

Save the Bees. Greenpeace USA, www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/.

Accessed 6 July 2017.

Schober, Marc. The Importance of Bees in Agriculture. AgWeb - The Home Page of Agriculture, 16

June 2013,

www.agweb.com/blog/farmland_forecast_148/the_importance_of_bees_in_agriculture/.

Accessed 6 July 2017.

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Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife. In a Race against Extinction, Rusty Patched Bumble Bee Is Listed as

Endangered. Official Web Page of the U S Fish and Wildlife Service,

www.fws.gov/midwest/news/861.html. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Protect Bees and Other Pollinators. Earth Rangers Wild Wire Blog

RSS, www.earthrangers.com/wildwire/bbtw_updates/top-5-reasons-why-you-should-protect-

bees-and-other-pollinators/. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Tsvetkov, N., et al. Chronic Exposure to Neonicotinoids Reduces Honey Bee Health near Corn

Crops. Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 30 June 2017,

science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1395.full. Accessed 6 July 2017.

Why We Need To Save The Bees + 10 Things You Can Do To Help. Natural Living Ideas, 12 June

2015, www.naturallivingideas.com/save-the-bees/. Accessed 6 July 2017.