Bees pollinate over one third of the world’s vegetation, including tasty treats such as chocolate and coffee, but they’re also the only insect on this planet that are able to produce foods that humans can eat. Unfortunately, these environmental allies have been rapidly dying off in the past two decades. Due to harmful pesticides, this hardworking species are nearing extinction causing an abundance of devastating ecological problems. Luckily, steps can be taken to help stop the disappearance of these humble creatures.
Without these extraordinary bugs, an abundance of flowers and plants would face extreme difficulties when attempting to reproduce. Reportedly 25,000 different species of budding plants are solely dependent on bees to aid them in …show more content…
Without bees and natural pollinators to fulfill their job of pollination, companies would have to regress into the act of artificial pollination. Artificial, or hand, pollination is a procedure used when natural, often referred to as open, pollination is either insufficient or unwanted or both. Hand pollination is best understood by imagining the process in the same way as artificial insemination in human beings. The value of both wild and/or managed pollinators (such as artificial pollination) in the manufacture of commercial crops has been assessed in numerous countries and regions by using different approaches. The estimated value of the work of honey bees in the USA is somewhere between $1.6 billion and $14.6 billion (de Lange and Veldtman). With these six-legged employees gone, farmers would be losing billions of dollars of free labor, not including the cost of equipment, research, and workers. The use of artificial pollination is estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars simply to do a job that is already being effectively done by nature (de Lange and Veldtman). Hand pollination is both time and cost inefficient, but will become a necessity and a reality with the depletion of the most important natural pollinators; the honey …show more content…
Neonicotinoids are a new strand of insecticides that that chemically similar to nnicotine. The name literally means new nicotine-like insecticides (“What Is a Neonicotinoid?”). Originally big time pesticide companies claimed that these chemicals were not harmful to insects, they even claimed to be beneficial to their health, but recently new studies have proven quite the opposite. Neonicotinoids are responsible for the increasing malformation and decreasing developmental rate of bees. This means that bees that are ingesting tiny amounts of the harmful chemicals are unable to grow properly, causing their colonies to be smaller (“What Is a Neonicotinoid?”). Exposure to harmful pesticides also reduces the aptitude of bees to detect necessary food sources. For instance, when a certain neonicotinoid called Fipronil is given to honey bees their capacity to sense sucrose (sugar)
Without these extraordinary bugs, an abundance of flowers and plants would face extreme difficulties when attempting to reproduce. Reportedly 25,000 different species of budding plants are solely dependent on bees to aid them in …show more content…
Without bees and natural pollinators to fulfill their job of pollination, companies would have to regress into the act of artificial pollination. Artificial, or hand, pollination is a procedure used when natural, often referred to as open, pollination is either insufficient or unwanted or both. Hand pollination is best understood by imagining the process in the same way as artificial insemination in human beings. The value of both wild and/or managed pollinators (such as artificial pollination) in the manufacture of commercial crops has been assessed in numerous countries and regions by using different approaches. The estimated value of the work of honey bees in the USA is somewhere between $1.6 billion and $14.6 billion (de Lange and Veldtman). With these six-legged employees gone, farmers would be losing billions of dollars of free labor, not including the cost of equipment, research, and workers. The use of artificial pollination is estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars simply to do a job that is already being effectively done by nature (de Lange and Veldtman). Hand pollination is both time and cost inefficient, but will become a necessity and a reality with the depletion of the most important natural pollinators; the honey …show more content…
Neonicotinoids are a new strand of insecticides that that chemically similar to nnicotine. The name literally means new nicotine-like insecticides (“What Is a Neonicotinoid?”). Originally big time pesticide companies claimed that these chemicals were not harmful to insects, they even claimed to be beneficial to their health, but recently new studies have proven quite the opposite. Neonicotinoids are responsible for the increasing malformation and decreasing developmental rate of bees. This means that bees that are ingesting tiny amounts of the harmful chemicals are unable to grow properly, causing their colonies to be smaller (“What Is a Neonicotinoid?”). Exposure to harmful pesticides also reduces the aptitude of bees to detect necessary food sources. For instance, when a certain neonicotinoid called Fipronil is given to honey bees their capacity to sense sucrose (sugar)