It's a Bees’ World

No more Honey and Toast! 

The scented candles that helped you relax. Gone! 

The Royal Jelly that you consumed to reduce your cholesterol and keep your sugar levels in check! You can’t have it anymore! 

Why? Because humans remained greedy and did not heed any warnings over so many years! 

The bees are dead, and the ecosystem they balanced and restored year after year is in disarray. 

Loss of jobs and dent in the economy

The year is 2050 and the natural sweetener honey is lost forever.

Humanity has already developed artificial sweeteners to replace it but needs to find job replacement for bee farmers.

There are 25,000 beekeepers in the UK and 125,000 in the US who now need jobs. The US produced 162 million pounds (73,000 tonnes) of honey, a $20 billion industry that will hurt the economy.

Telling you these numbers because that’s how we make sense of the world around us these days.

Repercussion In Ecosystem

Worse, the disappearance of bees has triggered an ecological imbalance, which is difficult to recover from.

Bees played an important role in the food chain, too. Their absence has meant that frogs and lizards can’t survive. This will impact the reptiles that eat them and, in turn, the larger birds that eat snakes. 

Bees were our best pollinators. Now that they are gone, fruits and vegetables such as peaches, apples, and guava will not grow so prolifically, and the world may be the survival of humanity is also at risk.

The Reality!

Bees have not gone extinct, but the species suffers from severe global decline. In the UK, around 13 species are extinct, and another 35 are currently at risk. Between April 2021 and April 2022, beekeepers in the US reported a nearly 40 percent decline in population.

The biggest cause of bee decline is the intensification of farming. It is worsened by the increased use of pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, which harm bees.

When bees come in contact with neonicotinoids, their flight and navigation are affected, along with their tasting ability, thereby impacting foraging.

Plants can metabolize neonicotinoids and break them down into other products. Scientists have found that these broken-down products are sometimes even more toxic to the bees.

At times, a bee can carry the pesticide back to the hive, which affects the metabolism of growing larvae and their ability to smell when they grow into adults.

Shifts in the seasons are disrupting flowering times and the availability of food, shelter, and nesting sites. Climate change is also causing extreme drought, heavier rainfall, and flooding, all of which are impacting bees' ability to survive.

This is why the United Nations celebrates 20th May as World Bee Day.

Help spread the word about the importance of bees and do our bit to save them!

Until next time,
Adya

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