Kearns-Imagine you are walking through a beautifully grown garden, full of fresh apples of all types, colorful orchids, bright sunflowers, and succulent berries. Now imagine that all disappears in an instance. Although this will be a slow change this is what our earth may become. Two species of bees were recently put on the endangered list, bumblebees and hylaeus, large losses of bumblebees is becoming more and more common by the year.

Without bees there would be detrimental effects, humans and other animals would have a tremendous change in their diet, earth would be left without many crops such as apples, avocados, and berries, and many other crops would become a rarity, such as coffee.

Due to environmental changes and other factors bees are dying off at alarming rates. According to a study done by an annual nationwide survey there was a 40% loss of honeybees in managed environments from April 1st, 2017 and March 31st, 2018.

Factors to the bees dying are things like disease, pesticides, herbicides, climate change and stress.

Many pesticides have been linked to cancer, one of the most common types of pesticides that are harmful to bees is neonicotinoid, this pesticide is harmful to the reproductive system of bees. Pesticides slowly kill bees and are becoming more common in homes and agricultural areas. Pesticides are not only harmful to bees, but also birds, plants, and even humans.

Nosema is also a common reason for death among bees. Nosema is a spore forming parasite. Often times young bees ingest nosema and infect other bees of the colony throughout a small period of time.

So what can we do to save the bees? There are many organizations that work hard to save bees, some examples of these organizations are BEE-SAFE, The Honeybee Conservancy, and GreenPeace which is also known to help with many other environmental issues.

Other steps you can use to save the bees is to reduce or abolish your use of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. There are many natural ways of dealing with these issues, such as bugs who eat pest, ladybugs are a very common predator to pests such as aphids.

Weeds like dandelions can also benefit bees; however, many people don’t want weeds in their yards or gardens. Another solution is to plants flowers herbs and other crops that attract bees, for instance, sunflowers, basil or lavender.