Bees are one of people favorite insects- appearing in classic movies such as Bee Movies and helping people every day by pollinating plants. But in the past few years’ bee populations have been steadily decreasing and scientists haven’t known why, until now. Scientists now think that the pesticides that we use everyday to grow our foods and keep our gardens growing may be responsible for the death of the bee.
- Scientists now think that pesticides are causing bee’s to die by making the worker bee confused and unable to properly make honey, as well stopping bees from making queens who are the mothers of bees!
- Often pesticides are sprayed in ways that makes bees more likely to ingest it into their systems which hurts the bees very badly.
- One pesticide called Neonicotinoid is especially harmful to bees with experts saying “there is no question that Neonicotinoid puts a huge stress on the survival of honey bees in the environment”-Chensheng (Alex) Lu .
- Bees are a valuable part of nature, they are the number one pollinator of fruits and flowers, they are also responsible for a lot of the foods you eat everyday!
- In parts of North America and Europe, people are reporting 90% of bee populations disappearing.
- In America alone scientists have estimated that bees perform $8-12 billion dollars worth of services to people!
Want to learn more? Read the full story: New study adds to evidence that common pesticides decimating bee colonies