How Bees Are in Trouble
Two bees looking for nectar on a flower.
Introduction
Did you know bees don't just make honey for us? While they are collectingcollecting nectarnectar from the flowers to make the honey, they are also collecting pollenpollen on their bodybodies. This is called pollination.pollination. The pollen grains have to be mixed between the femalefemale and male parts of the flower before the plant can produceproduce seeds. But bees are disappearing!disappearing! Unless we do something about this, there will be no more fruit and vegetables and no more us!
Habitat Loss
Diagram of Parts of a Flower
As people are cutting down trees to build more houses, bees have fewerfewer places for their nests and to find nectar. They get hungry and stressedstressed after flying a long way because they need nectar to survive.survive.
Farming and Gardening
Bees don't have enough flowers to choose from if farmers only grow one crop. As long as farmers and gardenersgardeners use insecticidesinsecticides to kill pests, bees are going to die. Even if people have gardens in the city, they don't have lots of flowers. Gardeners shouldn't weed or mow once the plants have flowers.
Diseases
There are fungal,fungal, and bacterialbacterial diseasesdiseases that kill bees. There are also parasitesparasites like the VarroaVarroa mite that infectinfect hives.
| Fact Box |
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Bees can only see blue, purple, white and yellow.
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Pollution and Climate Change
Rather than warm weatherweather that is good for forageing, climateclimate change can bring bad weather. PollutionPollution kills too many of the plants bees like.
Beekeepers
Not as many people are becomebecoming professionalprofessional beekeepers.beekeepers. They have a lot of knowledgeknowledge which amateuramateur beekeepers don't have.
Conclusion
Bees are dying because we are destroyingdestroying their habitat,habitat, because of the way that we garden and farm, and bad beekeeping. Until we stop it, there will be less and less bees and less and less honey, fruit and vegetables for us.
Glossary
| amateur | like a hobby | knowledge | what someone knows |
| bacterial | diseases caused by bacteria | parasites | very little bugs |
| foraging | looking for food | pollution | rubbish, poison, and toxic gases in the air |
| habitat | where something lives | professional | do a job for a living |
| insecticides | poisons to kill insects | stressed | mad, angry, worried |
| fungal | diseases caused by fungi eg mould | viral | diseases caused by viruses |
Bibliography
'Put the buzz back into your neighbourhood', Central Leader, September 16, 2015
How Bees Make Honey by Lousie Spilsbury, published by A&C Black Publishers, 2010
By Millar
Diagram by Noah Elhardt
Photograph by Amatulic
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