In one of my college courses recently, the topic of biodiversity and bee populations was brought up. As we were talking, a student sitting behind me leaned over to his friend and made the statement “Who needs bees anyway, all they’ve ever done is sting me.” Now, knowing this remark was more witty than a reflection of their opinion on bees, it does show the disconnect felt by many American’s and their natural world.

In a recent NPR article (Bees Added To U.S. Endangered Species List For 1st Time), news broke that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has now declared 7 species of yellow-faced bees under the endangered species list, protecting them by the Endangered Species Act. The NPR article claims that “The seven endangered species are impacted by a wide variety of threats, including habitat destruction because of urbanization or non-native animals, the introduction of non-native plant species, wildfires, non-native predators and natural events such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and drought.” Many of these issues come from anthropogenic sources, including wildfires and droughts. Even though these sources are marked as ‘natural events’, they are further encouraged and intensified due to human behavior including our depletion of natural waterways and disruption of the natural cycle of wildfires.

While placing these seven species on the list serves as a tragic reminder of the decline of an influential species, it also gives hope for the future of these bees. By having protection under the Endangered Species Act, the bees are given a chance to be saved as well as the recognition and attention they’ve needed for quite some time now.

While this is bittersweet news, it should serve as a reminder to us humans how important bees are to our environment. Honeybees, a keystone species, are extremely important for pollinating the crops we consume every year. Despite the fact that they have a direct impact on our agriculture sector, we are still killing them off with the glyphosate and other chemicals found in pesticides that we are increasingly using on our crops year after year. Let this example serve as a cautionary warning that our current actions must be changed before it’s too late, or we will forever realize just how much bees used to do for us besides “just stinging us”.