“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live” -Maurice Maeterlinck (Nobel Prize)
By today (July 2019) the world has already lost 1/3 of its bee population. Why? Bees are suffering due to the increase of industrial agriculture. The heavy use of pesticides and chemicals are causing what is known as the “colony collapse disorder”. Whilst the increase of monocultures is disrupting their habitat, destroying biodiversity and replacing it with swaths of one crop. Yet it’s not just bees who need biodiversity, humans do to. Thanks to bees role as pollinators bees are an inevitable part of our food chain. They are responsible for the pollination of 1/3 of our crop production. From blueberries to apples, almonds, peaches, cocoa, oranges and more! These crops are dependant on the survival of bees, and therefore so are we.
World Bee Project
How can you Beesponsible?
Following David Attenborough’s advice you can leave a teaspoon of water and sugar to help them rehydrate in your garden.However if you also have a lawn, another trick is to let it run wild. Wildflower-studded lawns have become an important stop for bees and butterflies. Meadows can contain up to 3 million flowers, supporting up to 96,000 bees a day. Earlier this year the “no mow May” and “every flower counts” movements in the UK encouraged gardeners to partake in having a meadow instead of a lawn.Or take a page from Morgan Freeman and convert your entire ranch into a bee sanctuary.
Better yet adopt a bee-hive and follow its growth online!Together we can save bees, and ourselves.
By: Isabella Cavalletti
