TRANSCRIPT
– It looks as if everybody is speaking about bees.
It is perhaps as a result of there are 2.8 million honeybee hives within the U.S. alone.
With 20 to 60,000 bees per hive, that is greater than 50 billion honeybees flying round our farms and neighborhoods each summer time.
(bees buzzing) The honeybee is the closest factor there’s to a domesticated insect.
We deal with them in order that they will deal with us by serving to a lot of our crops reproduce.
However honeybees aren’t the one bees on the town.
In reality, it is just a little unusual that they are are right here in any respect.
Settlers from England introduced the primary honeybees to North America in 1622.
However these European honeybees arrived to a continent that was already teeming with wild bees, greater than 4,000 species of them.
Yeah, there are 4,000 species of untamed native bees dwelling right here in North America.
A few of these wild bees species are bumblebees.
They’re most likely our most well-known wild bees, and so they have rather a lot in widespread with honeybees.
They’re usually striped with yellow and black, and so they reside in colonies that may be energetic all summer time lengthy.
However most wild bees are fairly totally different.
Lots of them are solitary, that means that they reside their lives alone.
In these species, every feminine is a hardworking single mother who builds her personal nest, normally in a wooden tunnel or underground burrow, lays her personal eggs, and works alone to collect nectar and pollen to feed her infants.
A few of these solitary bees solely reside a couple of weeks as adults.
Wild bees are available in nearly each measurement, form, and coloration you possibly can think about.
Some are large, some are tiny, some are fuzzy, some are shiny.
They are often yellow, orange, purple, inexperienced, black, even blue.
Greater than 80% of all plant species depend on animals to maneuver their pollen from flower to flower.
This course of, referred to as pollination, is how these crops reproduce.
Every kind of animals play a task in pollination: butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, wasps, ants, even birds and bats, however bees are one of the best pollinators on the market.
And whereas honeybees get a lot of the consideration, wild bees may be simply as a efficient, oftentimes much more so.
Bumblebees, as an illustration, can use their wing muscle mass to vibrate their our bodies and launch the pollen from sure sorts of flowers… (bee buzzing) a trick we name buzz pollination.
And in contrast to honeybees, which pollinate tons of various crops, many wild bees solely go to a couple of flower species and even only one, just like the demise camas mining bee, the one bee that may eat the poisonous pollen of the demise camas flower.
A few of these relationships have developed over tens of millions of years, and the survival of every accomplice is dependent upon the opposite.
For crops, pollination may be simply as necessary as water and daylight.
It is pollination that ensures that crops can produce sufficient fruits and seeds to feed all of the animals that eat them, with sufficient left over to make the subsequent era of crops.
And crops do not simply feed animals and folks; they supply habitat for different creatures, they assist keep wholesome soil and water, and even produce the oxygen that we breathe.
So a wholesome group of pollinators is a part of a wholesome planet.
Sadly, be inhabitants world wide are dwindling due to human impacts.
(somber instrumental music) In 2017, the rusty patched bumblebee turned the primary North American bee species to be listed as an endangered species within the U.S., and it is not alone.
By one estimate, about half of our wild bee species could also be declining, and about half of these might be vulnerable to extinction.
Now here is the excellent news: we will all do one thing about it proper the place we reside.
Wild bees want locations to nest, and so they do not ask for a lot.
For a lot of species, a wooden pile or a patch of free soil might be simply what they’re searching for.
And don’t be concerned.
Whereas most wild bees can sting when you hassle them, they’re actually fairly pleasant.
Wild bees additionally want to remain wholesome, so attempt to keep away from utilizing pesticides and different dangerous chemical compounds, like weed killers, in locations that wild bees frequent.
And naturally, wild bees want meals.
When you have a yard, a group backyard, a rooftop, or perhaps a window field, you possibly can develop flowering crops native to your space.
Plant even one sq. foot of untamed flowers, and I promise you, bees will discover them and respect them.
And eventually, share the excellent news.
When you begin attracting bees, inform everybody about your bee sanctuary.
Bees want all of the associates they will get, and every one in every of us could make a distinction.
(upbeat jazz music)
