How Can We Survive Without A Bee Extinction?

Some may see the bees as just a buzzing nuisance out to sting and chase them around the yard, what many don’t realize is that the whole world could turn into a barren, lifeless scene without the bees. No plants, no food, possibly not even humans would survive. The topic I will be exploring is wether or not bees are vital to our survival. Put away all thoughts of zombie apocalypses, or sudden major earthquakes: bees should be the main focus because they could do even more damage than a zombie apocalypse, and what’s worse is that the possibility of bee extinction is closer than you think. According to Elite Daily, it was reported in 2014 that the bee population is already less than half of what it was just 69 years ago (Haltiwanger, 2014). So,

Honeybees are the only species to produce honey, hence the name. They store honey in honeycombs to save for the winter. To illustrate how vast the differences in bee species can be, I’ll talk about the carpenter bee. Much unlike other bees, carpenter bees are a solitary bee. This means that they don 't live in colonies and there’s no queen bee for them to serve (Pest World, 2014). Carpenter bees aren’t sterile like other female worker bees, they can reproduce and care for their own offspring (Pest World, 2014). One difference from a honey bee is that they can sting multiple times because their stinger is smooth and wont hurt them. However, a carpenter bee is unlikely to use their stinger for any thing other than laying their eggs. One thing that is very particular about a carpenter bee is that they can drill or chew through wood. They carve out their tunnel and live there as opposed to other bees who live in nests (Pest World, 2014). For thousands of years bees have been a vital element to the human race survival. I’m not talking about providing us with their famous honey, although that is a plus. According to the Natural

Pretty much this means bees pick up pollen from one flower and transfer to the next flower, but what does this do? Once the pollen is on the stigma of a female flower, the pollen is made into a tube that grows into the flower which produces a seed to allow more flowers (What is Pollination). This may seem like a simple task but only a few species in the world are born to do this and while humans can do it by hand, it takes significantly longer than bees. Here are just of the few plants and crops bees pollinate: potatoes, oranges, tomatoes, coffee, alfalfa, cotton, oregano, mint and thousands more (Sarich, 2013). So what is happening to the bee colonies anyways? Alexandra Zissu explains all about a disorder called Colony Collapse Disorder, also referred to as CCD, in her article “The Buzz About Colony Collapse Disorder”. CCD is what is being used to describe why bees all over are dying. Specifically, worker bees are mysteriously disappearing and the rest of the colony cannot survive without them, resulting in the loss of the entire hive. The death of these bees is happening at a devastating rate. In just 2015, 42% of bee colonies were loss and for a long time nobody knew why they