These are the best plants you can grow to support bees and wild pollinators; Mow less: mowing your lawn just once a month rather than once a week can give insects and wildflowers a chance to thrive. Better still, simply leave some areas unmown to provide a sheltered oasis for all kinds of wildlife; Be natural: pesticides are harmful to all pollinators — you can help to reduce the amount of chemicals that enter the food chain by gardening in a more natural way. Organic gardening is much more beneficial for wildlife and us; Encourage wildness: tall or tussocky grassy areas, bramble patches, nettle beds, wildflower areas, log piles, and damp wet ditches are all fantastic habitats for a wide range of pollinators to nest, breed and overwinter safely.
Dandelions are an important food for hungry queen bumblebees raising their young. More about Bees Food pollination honey Climate crisis habitat loss. Already subscribed? Log in. Forgotten your password? Want an ad-free experience?
Those foods make up a tremendous proportion of human calorie intake worldwide. Even among the 87 crops that use animal pollinators, there are varying degrees of how much the plants need them. Production of the remaining crops would likely continue without bees with only slightly lower yields. So if honeybees did disappear for good, humans would probably not go extinct at least not solely for that reason.
But our diets would still suffer tremendously. The variety of foods available would diminish, and the cost of certain products would surge. The California Almond Board, for example, has been campaigning to save bees for years. The coffee flower is only open for pollination for three or four days. There are plenty of other examples: apples, avocados, onions, and several types of berries rely heavily on bees for pollination.
The disappearance of honeybees, or even a substantial drop in their population, would make those foods scarce. Humanity would survive—but our dinners would get a lot less interesting. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of NRDC. Learn more or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Bees, which pollinate crops like apples, blueberries, pumpkins, and watermelon, are facing huge challenges to their survival, such as the overuse of neonic pesticides.
We will keep you informed with the latest alerts and progress reports. Photo: Staff Sgt. Air Force. So You Want to Be a Beekeeper Narrator: But as far as important species go, bees are near the top of the list. You see, bees are critical pollinators, meaning they're responsible for pollinating more than a third of the crops that feed the world's population.
But today, bees are dying off at record rates. So, what would a world without bees look like, and what would that mean for our global food supply? Narrator: Well, if all the bees on Earth suddenly dropped dead tomorrow, things wouldn't look good for our planet. And that's because pollination is critical to the health of our global ecosystem. It's what allows plants to reproduce and grow the fruits and vegetables humans need for a balanced diet. And the thing is, bees are some of the best pollinators out there.
In fact, they've co-evolved with flowering plants over millions of years to become pollinating machines. Without bees and other pollinators, supermarket shelves would hold about half the fruits and vegetables they have now, transforming the produce section from this We wouldn't have luxuries like almonds, apples, or avocados.
We use alfalfa to feed dairy cattle, and dairy cattle, of course, produces the milk, and the milk is used to produce many dairy products that we eat. When I talk to the kids, all the kids are very disappointed to hear that we might lose ice cream. Narrator: The extinction of bees could have a disastrous domino effect, killing off animals that eat those plants, and so on up the food chain.
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