Posted
on August 16, 2014
Bees!
Some
of us fear them—and some people are so allergic to them, they have
to carry around emergency medication because a bee sting could kill
them.
Some
of us spend our lives raising bees, and selling their honey.
But
all of us depend on them, because around 250,000 species of flowering
plants depend on bees for pollination. And many of these plants are
crucial food crops! About a third of the foods we eat depend
on pollination by bees!- Alfalfa
- Almonds
- Apples
- Asparagus
- Beans
- Beets
- Blackberries
- Blueberries
- Brussels sprouts
- Buckwheat
- Cabbage
- Cantaloupe
- Cauliflower
- Celery
- Cherries
- Chestnuts
- Chives
- Clover
- Cranberries
- Cucumber
- Currants
- Eggplant
- Flax
- Garlic
- Gooseberries
- Grapes
- Horseradish
- Kale
- Lettuce
- Mustard
- Onions
- Parsley
- Peaches
- Pears
- Plums
- Pumpkins
- Radishes
- Raspberries
- Rhubarb
- Squash
- Strawberries
- Sunflowers
- Sweet potatoes
- Turnip
- Watermelon
In
addition to food, many of our medicines come from flowering plants.
And there's cotton! Jeans! T-shirts!
So,
yeah, we all depend on bees. And what about all the birds and small
mammals that feed on the berries and seeds of flowering plants. How
many of them depend on bees for their own survival?
Hopefully
I have convinced you that bees are really important. And
unfortunately, bee populations are in freefall. All around the world,
the western honeybee – which is not very aggressive and which makes
a LOT of honey – has been suffering from parasites and viruses.
Probably the bees' problems are made worse by modern agricultural
practices and pesticide use.
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