Imagine sitting in a room and an insect starts bothering you. Most people will kill the bug without a second thought. However this may not be a good idea. A seriously underrated insect is bees. Both pollinators and honey bees have a very important place in the ecosystem. I mean of course other insects have their places, but to humans they are more like pests. A lot of people see bees the same as every other insects, however bees are the reason for most of our foods. Not to mention they produce honey which is one of the best foods, like ever.
If bees were to disappear, we would know. There are about 4,000 species of bees in the United States, and about 25,000 in the world! Bees are well known pollinators. They have special pockets on their legs to collect more pollen. Of course bumblebees are more successful because of their large size. Bees don’t only pollinate food but flowers as well. Without bees a ton of different types of flowering plants would not exist.
Bees help to naturally fertilize plants. Bees tend to only pollinate one plant at a time. This helps to produce more of that specific plant. This means more food for humans. Bees and a few other pollinators helped to produce 19 billion dollars with of food in 2010. At the time this was around a third of everything we eat. Some of our crops can only be pollinated by bees. If bees stopped existing we would no longer have apples, strawberries, lemons, carrots, and so much more.
Something that is very important about bees is, they do help to keep wasps in check. Bees do not actively seek out wasps and hornets, it’s more like the other way around. Wasp try to infiltrate bee’s hives in order to steal the honey. For the most part they are not successful. Many bees give their lives to keep their queen, honey, and larva safe. Once a warning signal is given bees flock to the intruder and sting it until it dies. That means one less wasp for the rest of to deal with (do wasps and hornets do anything but be evil?).
When it comes down to it humans cannot survive without bees. However harmful pesticides are flooding our crops. Bees are trying to help us not harm us, most bees are very docile because they know they will die if they sting something. Also without bees there would be no honey. It is important to try and protect them so we can continue to eat the foods we love and pick flowers.
