When I was a kid, my piano teacher always used to put little bee stickers on my sheet music when I successfully learned a piece. That’s when my fondness for bees started, even though I got stung a lot as a little kid. In college, a friend and I would search “Bee Butts in Flowers” and send the results back and forth to cheer each other up. It works quite well, I recommend giving it a go. I do understand why people are scared of bees, especially if you should be allergic to them. But when I see those little guys just buzzing around, hard at work, I can’t help but smile. 

What doesn’t make me smile is how we have impacted bees. The changes we have made to our planet have significantly impacted pollinator species and climate change is only exacerbating these impacts. Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” Mind you this isn’t completely true – our livelihoods, diets, and mental health would suffer dramatically, but humankind would live on without bees (NRDC, World Without Bees). But why let it go that far?

Bees are the pollinators of our world. Insect pollinators directly account for 35% of our global food production, and bees do 90% of that work (Earth.org, Bees). Without bees, our food systems would begin to collapse. “Far-reaching impacts would ripple through the global ecosystem and create global food insecurity, nutritional deficiencies, and further imbalance parts of the world that are already sensitive due to climate change (Earth.org, Bees).”

Bees are most vulnerable to habitat loss, invasive species, emerging diseases, pesticides, shifting temperatures and climates, and changing weather patterns (Brown and Paxton). While some of these impacts are hard for the individual to help change, there are simple actions that everyone can take to help the bee population prosper (The Bee Conservancy).

• Plant a bee garden. There are many plants and flowers that are rich with flowers and pollen that help bees thrive. 
  
  
• Go pesticide free. Pesticides are dangerous for bees. Eliminating them from your garden regime will help protect bees. 

• Become a citizen scientist! Gather data on our pollinators and weather and report it to your local station.

• Plant trees! Bees can collect pollen from trees as well!

• Create a bee bath. Bees get tired when they’re out. Build a bee bath so they can hydrate and re-energize while they’re away from the hive. 

• Build a beehive! Bees are out of resources to build sufficient homes! Try to help them out by building the foundation of a hive! Check out the NYC Bee Association to learn how to take action: http://www.bees.nyc/

Bees are important to the world and the food that we know and love. Any steps that we can take, whether individually or collectively, we need to take to protect this species. It’s World Bee Day this Friday. Take some time this week to appreciate your local bees and (if you can) take some steps to help protect them – after all, spring is the perfect time