“It’s a bee!” someone screams as they jump up from their picnic blanket, knocking over their apple juice and flailing their arms, trying to get away from this flying creature. Does this scene sound familiar?
Many people are afraid of bees. And why not? They look like aliens. They have stingers that hurt more than you would expect and some people are very allergic, even deathly allergic, to them. But contrary to our fears, bees are not aggressive insects and do not go after humans unprovoked. When they come near you, it is only because you have something they consider yummy. And if you knew all that they do for you, you would be happy to share your food or drink with them!
More than 75 percent of the world’s food crops depend, to some extent, on pollination. Pollinators, like bees, butterflies, birds, moths, beetles, and even bats, help plants reproduce. Fruits and vegetables are actually plant babies. We don’t often consider them in this way, but seeds, fruits and some vegetables come from a plant that has been pollinated. Bees are part of the reason we even have some of that picnic food!
Yet, there has been a worrisome decline in the population of pollinators, especially bees and butterflies, mainly due to intensive agricultural practices, changes in land use, pesticides (including neonicotinoid insecticides), alien invasive species, diseases, pests, and climate change. Close to 35 percent of invertebrate pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, and about 17 percent of vertebrate pollinators, such as bats, face extinction globally. Farmers and policy makers have a big role to play in safeguarding our pollinators. But there are things we can do too.
On World Bee Day, here are 6 reasons to BEE grateful for our pollinators and tips on how you can show it:
1. They improve our diets by providing micronutrient-rich foods - Not all our food crops need pollination; rice, wheat and potatoes, for example, would survive even if our pollinators did not. However, many of the very nutritious, micronutrient-rich foods, like fruits, some vegetables, seeds, nuts and oils, would disappear without pollinators. A world without pollinators is a world without some of the foods we love so much (and need for good nutrition!) like strawberries, apples, blueberries, cherries, almonds, cocoa and coffee.
Tip: Return the favor! Give bees food they like by growing native plants in your garden. Plants and pollinators have a mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationship. They need one another to survive and have therefore evolved that way. Native, local plants are the ones that will be most adapted to native bees. Planting a diverse set of native plants which flower at different times of the year can make a huge difference for pollinators.