04 Jun Bees and You: What You Should Know if the Bee Population Disappears
When most people consider bees, they think about enjoying honey or avoiding getting stung. Many people wish that bees didn’t exist because they are allergic to the insect or just annoyed by the buzzing creature. What would the world be like if bees didn’t exist? Bees are actually needed to help our world thrive and without them, our crops would be affected.
Bees are critical to the pollination of our crops and vegetation.
Bees pollinate 70 crop species out of 100 in existence. They essentially help to feed 90% of the world. If bees were to become extinct, we could lose all of the plants that bees work so hard to pollinate. This would result in animals not having enough food to eat. When animals can’t eat, then we don’t have animals to eat because they die of starvation. A world that does not include bees would see a struggle begin when it comes to sustaining the human population.
Bees are not the only pollinators in existence, but they are the best at what they do. A bee will transfer pollen from a male flower to a female flower, which results in more flowers being created. The pollination technique applies to flowers as well as fruits and veggies. Bees need pollen to feed their larvae, so they have a biological need to gather pollen. This is what causes the bees to pollinate at such a rapid rate.
Because crops would be scarcer, it would drive up the cost of everyday items.
Bees help farmers by pollinating so that a good amount of produce can be provided to the world. If bees were extinct, only so much food would be produced during the growing season. This would result in a markup of food prices as well as clothing. Clothes are made from cotton, which is pollinated by bees. Without bees, cotton would be harvested in smaller amounts, which would mean less material to create clothing, driving up the price of the clothes you buy.
Other areas that would be affected include pharmaceutical companies. Such drugs as morphine are created by plants that require pollination. Morphine is an extract of opium poppies which would basically be unavailable if bees were to disappear.
Much of what we use each day is related to bee pollination. The busy worker bees help to create our food supply, plants for our clothing and medications. This is why bees are so important. Without them, our world would certainly suffer a great deal!
As we live on earth, we should take great care to help preserve the bee population, so they can, in turn, continue to care for us by providing pollination of our much-needed plants and crops.