Have you ever seen a bee just flying around as a kid and you kind of got afraid and wanted to go crush it, but your mom stopped you? That’s because bees (though they are an insect and any insect to most kids are scary) are helpful. They play a huge part as pollinators in our society and without them, our world pretty much wouldn’t function.
To clear things up, there is actually a difference between bumblebees and honeybees. Honeybees have a black and white stripped body (Remember Buzz? The mascot for Cheerios? He’s a honeybee). Bumblebees have black bodies are a bit larger than honeybees.
Earlier this week, the U.S. officially listed the bumblebee as being an endangered species and that is a HUGE deal. The species that was listed was the rusty patched bumblebee, which is a fairly common species that we usually see flying around. But not so much as we may have remembered. This population has declined by over 90% in the last 30 years and that’s not a good thing. This species has been subject to disease, climate change, parasites, and loss of environment which has slowly been taking its toll. Just recently, the cereal brand Cheerios released an image of their famous box but with a white space where their mascot Buzz usually stands. They asked consumers to think about what would happen if we didn’t have bees and to help boost the Bee population, they started a campaign where they wanted to give away free packs of seeds. These seed packs contained 100 seeds and are for flower populations that the bees enjoy. That asked consumers to plant them in a bee friendly area and hope that this effort will help the bees out.
Without bees, we wouldn’t have beautiful flowers, tasty fruits or vegetables. Our environments would severely suffer because bee are a plants way of traveling. They help to spread their pollen and ensure that populations of plants reproduce and thrive. But without them, these plants are just stuck and can slowly start to decrease in size until nothing is left. That’s pretty terrifying, if you ask me. Not to mention that if fruits and vegetables start to take a hit, prices will skyrocket in the super market, even for fresh cut flowers.
If you see a bee out in the field struggling, put out some sugar water for it so that way it can take a moment to rest and recharge. Before reaching for that fly swatter, check to make sure that you aren’t about to kill a bee rather than a wasp and maybe this spring, go to your local florists and see what kind of plants bees like and plant a small bee garden in your back yard. The world and the bees will thank you and hopefully we can help nurse this population back so that we can take them off of the endangered species list and ensure a wonderful world and future for generations of bees and Humans to come.
