What would happen if bees disappeared? (2024)

FAQs

What would happen if bees disappeared? ›

In time we would likely lose all the plants that bees usually naturally pollinate. All the wild animals that eat those plants would also struggle to find food. This plant based food shortage could continue along the food chain and eventually affect almost all living creatures on the planet.

In Europe alone, 84% of the 264 crop species and 4,000 plant varieties exist thanks to pollination by bees. Some attribute the following quote to Albert Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.

Without bees, the availability and diversity of fresh produce would decline substantially, and human nutrition would likely suffer. Crops that would not be cost-effective to hand- or robot-pollinate would likely be lost or persist only with the dedication of human hobbyists.

The greatest pollinators

Bees are part of the biodiversity on which we all depend for our survival. They provide high-quality food—honey, royal jelly and pollen — and other products such as beeswax, propolis and honey bee venom.

Fortunately, bees are talented navigators. They use the sun as a fixed point and maintain an angle to the sun to know where they are relative to their hive. So, as long as they can see the sun, they can find their way back home.

So it is with pardonable pride that beekeepers have been known to endorse quotes like the one attributed to Albert Einstein: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.”

This wouldn't be an extinction-level event for humans, but it would cause widespread economic hardship and possibly famine until alternative cultivation systems and crops could be developed. Read more: Am I helping or hindering the bee population by eating honey?

The dams and levees that people have built on the rivers and streams of the world would erode. Farms would fall back to nature. The plants we eat would begin to disappear. Not much corn or potatoes or tomatoes anymore.

Why are bees under threat of extinction? Bee communities, both wild and managed, have been declining over the last half-century. Scientists have found that bees are dying from a variety of factors; pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, and climate change.

Living on all continents except Antarctica are approximately 350 million honey bee colonies, the majority wild. This equates to one colony for every 23 people. At approximately 10,000 bees per colony, there are approximately 3.5 trillion individual honey bees on the planet – or 440 per person.

Why are bees disappearing? ›

Loss of habitat: As rural areas become urban, the patches of green space that remain are often stripped of all weeds and their flowers, which bees rely on for food. Climate change: Unusually warm winters have caused plants to shift their schedules.

Did You Know? If you look or smell like a flower, you are more likely to attract the attention of a bee. They love the smell of some sunscreens, shampoos, perfumes and aftershaves. They also love flowery prints and shiny jewelry and buckles.

They are critical pollinators: they pollinate 70 of the around 100 crop species that feed 90% of the world. Honey bees are responsible for $30 billion a year in crops. That's only the start. We may lose all the plants that bees pollinate, all of the animals that eat those plants and so on up the food chain.

You might think the colony dies immediately, but the bees will try to be productive even without a queen. The colony does not entirely stop working right away, but as the older bees die, there will not be more bees to replace them. Gradually over the next 2-3 months, the colony will eventually fail.

Queens, who are responsible for producing and laying eggs, live for an average of two to three years, but have been known to live five years. Domesticated honey bee queens may die earlier, as beekeepers "re-queen" the hives frequently. A single queen lays thousands of eggs throughout her life.

One day I saw a worker bumble bee carry a dead bee in her mandibles (mouthparts). She carried the dead bee through the nest, down the tunnel, and then dropped it inside the flight cage! An undertaker bee in action. It makes sense that bumble bees would get rid of dead bees in their nest.

It is estimated that one third of bee populations are at risk of extinction as a direct result of human activity.

Role in the Ecosystem: Bees are a keystone species; if bees die off it will end most life. In nature, various animals depend on bees for their survival because their food sources – nuts berries, seeds, and fruits – rely on insect pollination.

Many of these causes are interrelated. The bottom line is that we know humans are largely responsible for the two most prominent causes: pesticides and habitat loss.

Odds are, within one or two hours, they will all turn into a cloud and fly away. If you're extremely concerned, get ahold of a local beekeeper. There are plenty of us out there, and we will be more than glad to come take the swarm away. We will then put it in the hive and protect it.