Bees Are So Important: How Do We Save Them?

Bees are dying and we should be worried. Around 33 percent of honeybee colonies in the US died last year.

There are multiple factors causing their deaths (such as global warming and depletion of resources), but a big and easily fixable factor is the usage of neonicotinoids or neonics.

This type of pesticide works when it is sprayed on the seeds of plants and the works its way into the tissue of the entire organism, including its pollen and nectar. It is extremely toxic to bees and other pollinators.

Everyone knows how important bees are to our food and ecosystem as a whole. Without them, we would loose much of the food we love, not to mention the devastation their extinction would have on the global ecosystem.

Margie Alt, Environment America’s executive director, had this to say about bees and pesticides:

“Honeybees, monarch butterflies and other pollinators are critical to a healthy planet and a healthy food supply. Bees alone pollinate 70 percent of the world’s most common crops. We should all be alarmed that colonies are dying off in record numbers... We can’t save the bees unless we ban the pesticides that are killing them.”

In the US, we are using chemicals to protect our food. But that protection is killing bees, which are a big part of how we get food. This doesn’t make sense.

Pesticides don’t just harm bees. Farmworkers are exposed to these pesticides just as often.

Jeannie Economos, pesticide health and safety project coordinator of the Farmworker Association of Florida points out that this exposure, for both bees and farmworkers, impacts their health and the health of their offspring.

“The risks and consequences of pesticide exposure are experienced first and foremost by the men, women and even children working in agriculture, planting, harvesting, cultivating, and packing the products that the rest of us use and consume,” she said. “We must work together to protect the health of farmworkers, pollinators and the planet.  We all depend on it.”

So why are we still using these pesticides if they’re so bad? Big agrichemical companies are fighting hard to prevent banning of harmful pesticides. Some governments have fought back, like the European Union imposing a partial ban on certain neonics.

The US had not had as much success. While the Environmental Protection Agency opened assessments for public comment last year, neonics are still legally used on plants throughout the country, leading to the deaths of millions of bees.

People in the US food industry, from restaurant owners to chefs, are trying to have a say and change this. The Bee Friendly Food Alliance is a group of those in the food industry

coming together to speak up to decision makers for the bees.

Of the 65 members of the alliance, two restaurants in Colorado are currently members of the group: duo Restaurant in Denver and Taste Local in Loveland. Other restaurants can sign up and join the voices fighting for the lives of bees.

The alliance is just a small start to saving the bees. There’s a lot more to be done if we really care about them and everything they do for humans.