What If the Bees Disappeared?

Bees, often misunderstood and sometimes feared, are essential to our planet's health and our survival. With around 20,000 species worldwide, they are among the planet's most significant pollinators, playing a vital role in the reproduction of countless flowering plants, including many crops that make up a significant portion of the human diet.

Understanding the Risks for Humans and the Environment.

But bee populations are declining at an alarming rate due to habitat loss, pesticide exposure, disease, and climate change, raising a concerning question: What would happen if bees went extinct?

What If the Bees Disappeared? 

The Critical Role of Bees in Agriculture and Ecosystems

Bees are indispensable pollinators for numerous crops. In 2012, bees and other pollinators contributed an estimated $34 billion in fruit, vegetable, and crop production in the United States alone. Globally, 87 of the leading global food crops rely on animal pollination, which feeds 90% of the world's population! 

Many crops rely heavily on bees for pollination. For instance, California's almond trees depend on honeybees for pollination, and farmers now truck in bees from out of state to ensure their crops are pollinated. The decline of bee populations has meant that California's almond trees aren't able to produce the nuts they used to. Almond trees are unique in that they rely largely on honeybees for pollination.

 Environmental Impacts of Bee Extinction

The extinction of bees would have profound impacts on plant biodiversity and ecosystem stability. Bees are responsible for pollinating approximately 80% of flowering plants. Their absence would lead to significant reproductive challenges for many plant species, potentially causing their decline or extinction.

This loss of plant biodiversity would have cascading effects throughout ecosystems:

Disruption of Ecosystem Services: Bees contribute to ecosystem services beyond pollination, including supporting food webs and maintaining habitat structures. Their extinction would disrupt these services, leading to broader ecological consequences.

Cascading Effects on Food Chains: The decline in plant species due to the lack of bee pollination would have significant impacts on food chains. Herbivores that depend on these plants for nourishment would face shortages, which would, in turn, affect predators and other species higher up the food chain.

Reduced Ecosystem Resilience: Biodiversity is crucial for ecosystem resilience. The loss of bee-pollinated plants would reduce biodiversity, making ecosystems more vulnerable to environmental changes and less resilient to disturbances.

Alteration of Plant Communities: Without bees, plant community compositions would likely shift. Generalist pollinators might not be able to compensate for the loss of bees, leading to dominance by plant species that do not rely on insect pollination, further reducing biodiversity.

The loss of bees would have significant ecological effects. A decline in bee populations would result in a decline in the plants they facilitate. From there, the cascading effects would be devastating. Altering habitats for insect populations that use these plants as shelter and reducing food sources for herbivores are just some of the foreseeable consequences. 

Even more severely, such extreme alteration of the food webs involved in all of this would likely lead to the extinction of other species ecologically downstream.

What If the Bees Disappeared? 

The Impact on Food Security and Diet

While the extinction of bees might not lead to famine due to our reliance on wind-pollinated cereals like wheat, rye, corn, and barley, our diet would be severely affected. About 60 percent of the total volume of food grown worldwide does not require animal pollination. Many staple foods, such as wheat, rice, and corn, are among the 28 crops that do not require the help of bees.

However, 20 percent of the overall crop production comes from crops that increase fruit and vegetable production with animal pollination, and 15% comes from crops that increase seed production with animal pollination. The variety of available foods would decrease, and the cost of certain foods would skyrocket. The California Almond Board, for example, has been fighting for years to save bees because without bees, almonds "simply would not exist". We would still have coffee without bees, but it would become expensive and rare. Crops like apples, avocados, onions, and various berries depend heavily on bee pollination, and their disappearance or scarcity would significantly impact our meals.

The extinction of bees would severely threaten global food security. Moreover, pollinator-dependent crops are often more nutritious, providing essential vitamins and minerals. For instance, in Nepal, 40% of plant-based vitamin A and 14% of vitamin C are directly attributable to insect pollination. The loss of these nutrient-rich foods would have significant implications for human health and nutrition worldwide.

Factors Contributing to Bee Decline

Several factors contribute to the decline of bee populations:

Pesticide exposure: Improper pesticide use can harm bees, leading to declines in their populations.

Climate change: Changing climate patterns can disrupt bee habitats and foraging patterns due to altered plant bloom times, extreme weather events, warmer winters, or unpredictable flash freezes.

Habitat loss: The fragmentation and degradation of natural habitats reduce bees' access to food and nesting resources. Fragmentation and degradation of near- and semi-natural habitats can be detrimental to bee communities.

Diseases and parasites: Pests like parasitic mites, the small hive beetle, and microsporidian parasites threaten bee colonies.

Agricultural intensification: Modern agricultural practices can reduce the diversity and abundance of pollinators.

What If the Bees Disappeared? 

Can We Survive Without Bees?

Even though losing bees probably wouldn't lead to a full-on famine, it doesn't mean that pollination would just stop completely. Flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, birds, and bats also play a role in pollination, accounting for up to half of the pollination visits in plant ecosystems.

However, the effectiveness of these animals varies, and while an individual non-bee insect or bird might outperform an individual honeybee, on average, they are just not as consistent, so they likely wouldn't be able to fully compensate for the loss of bees as a whole.

Technological innovations, such as rethinking our approach to agriculture with sustainable and diverse practices, may offer potential solutions.

Conservation Efforts and How You Can Help

Recognizing the crucial roles of bees, many initiatives are underway to combat their decline:

Habitat conservation: Organisations are working to preserve and restore bee habitats by creating flower-rich environments.

Community initiatives: Government programs and educational outreach programs aim to raise awareness and promote bee conservation.

Promoting bee-friendly practices: Encouraging practices such as planting pollinator gardens, reducing pesticide use, and supporting local beekeepers can significantly help bee populations.

Legislative measures: Some countries have enacted laws limiting the use of neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides harmful to bees. Neonicotinoids are a class of synthetic insecticides that are chemically similar to nicotine. They are widely used in agriculture to protect crops from various pests. Neonicotinoids are neurotoxins, meaning they affect the nervous system of insects. They bind to receptors in the insect's nervous system, disrupting their ability to function.

The EU has implemented a near-total ban on the outdoor use of three key neonicotinoids: clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam, but other insecticides, including some pyrethroids, can also pose risks to bees. These can have varying modes of action but still disrupt bee nervous systems or cause direct toxicity.  

Many other countries, particularly in South America, Africa, and Asia, continue to use neonicotinoids extensively. Countries like Brazil are major importers of these pesticides.

 Taking Action for Bee Conservation

Conserving wild bees requires effective actions to promote their diversity and enhance environmental quality. Support the establishment of protected areas and the ecological restoration of habitats to provide large, connected spaces for biodiversity. In these protected areas, adaptive management of both pollinators and ecosystems has to be set up by testing assumptions to define the best strategies and adapting the measures consequently to empirical evidence of the successes and failures of the management measures. The enhancement of the overall habitat quality by restoration measures implies an investigation of the habitat and resource preferences of the targeted wild bee species.

Implement conservation measures in anthropogenic habitats, promoting bee-friendly strategies in urban and agricultural areas, such as creating green spaces, planting diverse floral resources, and reducing pesticide use.

Roadsides, hedgerows, parks, and urban gardens can represent important habitats for wild pollinators, both qualitatively and quantitatively, as well as transition zones for habitat connectivity.

Strategies in agricultural areas like crops and farmland have still demonstrated a positive impact, depending on the type of measures. Offer diverse nesting options for wild bees, including bare soil patches and bee hotels with varying hole diameters. In practice, little effort has been concentrated on the (a)biotic factors influencing nesting success or site selection by different species. 

Monitor and manage invasive plant and pollinator species that can harm native bee populations and ecosystems. Invasive alien plants can have contrasting effects on wild bees depending on several factors.

Communicate and educate: Raise awareness about the importance of bees and provide clear, accurate information to the public to encourage effective conservation actions. First, it is crucial to develop citizen science programs combining education and training with the collection of long-term data.

Management Recommendations

Based on the information above, there are some steps that we can integrate into management plans:

Increase nesting opportunities with the particular nesting needs of different pollinating species in mind, and these may include gaps in surface vegetation or modifying cultivation practices, retaining neighboring forest nesting sites for ground-nesting bees, or leaving dead wood providing holes for cavity-nesting bees.

Increase forage by providing suitable, diverse floral resources in the local area and the broader landscape during the season of pollinator activity.

Enhance opportunities for colonization by connecting habitats with flowering strips and hedgerows around arable fields, small forest patches, or even single trees as ‘stepping stones’.

Reduce the risk of population crashes in the field and the surrounding habitats by foregoing the use of broad-spectrum insecticides during bloom, especially those with systemic or micro-encapsulated formulations that can contaminate nectar and pollen.

Potential Alternatives and Technological Solutions

In the face of bee extinction, researchers and technologists are exploring alternatives to bee pollination. However, these alternatives face significant challenges in terms of efficiency, cost, and scalability, and they cannot fully replicate the complex ecological roles that bees play in natural ecosystems.

• Native Pollinators: Other insects could partially fill the gap, but they may not be able to fully compensate for the loss of bees
• Artificial Pollination Technologies: Mechanical pollination methods, such as devices like "Robee" and "Crossbee," are being developed to mimic bee pollination
• Robotic Pollinators: "Robo bees" and other autonomous devices are being designed to navigate and transfer pollen between plants
• UAVs and Drones: These technologies are being explored for large-scale pollination in agricultural areas.

What If the Bees Disappeared? 

Conclusion

The extinction of bees would have catastrophic consequences for global ecosystems, food production, and human society. It would lead to a significant loss of biodiversity, disrupt food chains, destabilize ecosystems, and cause enormous economic losses. While technological solutions are being developed, they cannot fully replace the vital role that bees play in our world. This underscores the critical importance of conservation efforts and sustainable practices to protect bee populations and maintain the delicate balance of our global ecosystems.

By understanding the risks and supporting conservation efforts, we can work together to protect these vital pollinators and ensure a sustainable future for our planet.

Beyond the Decline of Wild Bees: Optimizing Conservation Measures and Bringing Together the Actors

Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops