USDA: Each of us depends on pollinators in a practical way to provide us with the wide range of foods we eat. In the United States, more than one-third of all crop production – 90 crops ranging from nuts to berries to flowering vegetables – requires insect pollination. Check out this interesting USDA infographic.
Greenpeace: Honey bees — wild and domestic — perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops — which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition — are pollinated by bees.
Some interesting facts about Bees:
- Bees have been producing honey for at least 150 million years
- Honey Bees have 5 eyes and 4 wings which beat at 11,400 times per minute
- They fly at 12 miles an hour and communicate by “dancing”
- Queen Bees lay between 1,000 to 1,500 eggs per day
- To produce 1 pound of honey, Bees must fly 55,000 miles and visit 2 million flowers
- The average worker bee can only make about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in their lifetime
- it would take 1 ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world
However, Bees are facing imminent and disastrous threats to their very survival.
ABC News: Nearly 40% decline in honey bee population last winter (2018) ‘unsustainable,’ experts say Food prices could rise if the number of bees pollinating crops keeps dwindling. The number of hives that survive the winter months is an overall indicator of bee health, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency: The honey bee population is in danger. As much as 70% of the bee population has died as a result of colony collapse disorder. Bees are under attack from a variety of sources, ranging from habitat loss to pesticides to climate change.
EcoWatch lists 15 Organizations and Initiatives Helping to Save the Bees. Better Homes and Gardens offers a list of 6 companies that are also trying to help preserve, protect and repopulate the bee population including Bee Raw, Haagan-Dazs, Me & Bees Lemonade, Burt’s Bees, Justins and Droga Chocolates. You can help by buying their products or contributing to one of the listed organizations by EcoWatch.
I chose #10 on their list to donate to, The Bee Girl Organization. Our mission is to educate and inspire communities to conserve bees, their flowers, and our countryside. We envision a future where kids frolic in pastures of flowers, buzzing with bees, alongside profitable family farmers and ranchers. Through our research projects and education programs we are regenerating soil, bees, and communities.
Give. Pray. Post. 