If you've ever been stung by a bee, you probably have some passionate hate for bees, but those little fuzzy guys do a lot for us. Bees happen to be the single most significant insect for the human race. Without bees, our lives would be very different.
1) We will lose some of our favorite foods! Honey bees are responsible for an average $30 billion a year in crops. (via bbc.com) These plants are pollinated by bees, which means when the bees die, so do they. We would lose: apples, mangoes, peaches, sunflower oil, kiwi, pomegranates, strawberries, onions, AVOCADOS (that means no guac), cherries, coffee, walnuts, cotton(that means clothes would be super expensive), lychee, macadamia nuts, limes, lemons, carrots, cucumber, watermelon, coconut, chili peppers, cocoa, tomatoes, and grapes just to name a few. (via honeylove.org)THINK OF THE GUAC WE ARE LOSING. In addition to these plants dying, animals higher up in the food chain, like cows and pigs, would cost more to feed, and that means higher prices for us. Seriously, if bees die out, the American economy will be is a crisis state, and food costs will skyrocket. Losing bees isn't pretty for anyone, but especially not for us.
2) Everyday items would cost more, or be unavailable altogether. Because cotton would disappear without bees, the price of clothing would grow, and we would have less options for fabrics. In addition, biofuel would disappear without canola, and the world would rely on fossil fuel. Without bees, renewable resources would be replaced with outdated and wasteful resources. Medicines and the pharmaceutical companies would also be hit by the extinction of bees. The key ingredient in morphine is extracted from opium poppies, which would be almost unavailable without bees, making morphine disappear.
3) Industries that use honey to manufacture products and things like cosmetics, would be slowly crumbling. Many cosmetics companies rely on honey as a key ingredient in their products. Honey is used widely in skincare, natural cosmetics, and lip balm. Burt's Bees, a company which uses honey is most of its products, would increase prices until having to stop production of their products. Honey used in facials would disappear, and many LUSH products that are made with honey would also disappear.
In short, bees are super duper important. Bees are dropping like flies and people need to understand the severity of the problem. If bees die, so do we. Bee extinction is human extinction.
