Today is the world bee day. You maybe wonder why, because it seems like there are so much more important things than bees.
But most people do not know is that bees are not only responsible for honey. There are very important for so much more.
With around 25.000 to 30.000 species bees are the biggest group of pollinators and this means a lot.
Besides bees, other common pollinators are butterflies, moths, flies, wasps, beetles and some vertebrate pollinators like bats ,some birds and a few monkey species.
A few of those pollinators like bees, bats and hummingbirds are threaten by human activities and in general the diversity of pollinators is striking. This is not good for any ecosystem because around 95% of wild flowers and 35% of the world agriculture are relying on pollinators.
You see, if we would not have pollinators in our ecosystem the world hunger would be even bigger.
But why do we even have to save the bees? Why are they threaten and why are they dying?
Those questions are not very easy to answer,
It seems like there are a few reasons which leading to the “bee dying” especially when the reasons are combined.
One reason are insecticides, which a lot of farmers but also private gardeners using to prevent insect attacks on their plants.
Another reason is “the cocktail effect” which basically means that the bees absorb all the bad stuff from the air. For example the exhaust gases of cars and all the other toxic substance of the air and water.
So in conclusion the “cocktail effect” is not very good!
A third reason is the monopoly agriculture. Bees need biodiversity to survive and this is simply not given in the modern agriculture.
A few other reasons are the dissection of biotopes, the climate change (because the bloom of a lot of flowers changes) and the light Pollution.
Maybe you realised one Things About all of those reasons?
Yes correct, they are made by us, humans.
So with our behaviour we put ourself in danger, because like I already wrote, bees are partly the reason for our food.
If their would be no bees their would be more than 30% less food in the world.
I think we should all agree on the fact that we have to save the bees!
But what can we do to save them?
You can stop using insecticides. Today there exist a lot of alternative pesticides which are not dangerous for bees.
In the summer when it is hot you can give them water so they have something to drink.
Another thing you can do is to plant crops which are bee friendly in your garden or if you do not have a garden you can also do it in a local park.
For the bees it does not matter where you do it.
It also helps to you buy honey from a local bee-keeper because then you support the bees around you and not the ones who produced your imported honey.
So, as you see there are a lot of different things that you can do to save the bees.
And to finish this article, here is one fact about bees which I find pretty amazing:
In their Lifetime bees fly so much that they circle the earth for 900 times. So with this nice fact: Bee aware of those problems and bee well!
#Savethebees & #happybeeday
written by Johanna Dilling
