In the general culture of the population it is understood that the planet's biodiversity it is deteriorating and diminishing. Biodiversity is known as the number of total species that inhabit a certain ecosystem and that their relationships and energy exchanges between them form the ecological balance.

Human beings depend on natural resources to satisfy our needs and to be able to carry out our economic activities. These natural resources would not be available in the same way that they are today if there were no such ecological balance. In all ecosystems there are species that have a certain function. In this case, each animal has a different and special function. What use or function can bees have for humans?

More and more people are talking about the disappearance of bees. The human being with his activities generates serious impacts on the environment. There are species that adapt better than others, but in our case, bees are being severely affected for us. If bees become extinct, it can be a very, very serious problem for the survival of the human species, but why?

Role of bees

Basically, the main function or ecosystem service that bees provide is pollination. Bees are very important in ecosystems, since many species of plants need them in order to reproduce. Like plants, humans need bees to pollinate 60% of the fruits and vegetables that exist today and, if they were not pollinated, they would disappear.

We just have to think that if bees stopped pollinating the fruits and vegetables that we eat, the world would lose a great nutritional contribution. The trophic chains would also be affected since herbivorous animals would not have food and could not survive, therefore, humans would not have those herbivorous animals from which we feed or extract food.

Bees pollinate more than 25.000 species of flowering plants. Without these insects, agricultural activity would tend to extinction. It would not only mean the decline of agriculture, but millions of families whose work is agriculture would see their income reduced. That is why the disappearance of bees would imply serious imbalances in the stability of the world economy. Thanks to the bees that pollinate the crops, billions of dollars a year. Without the bees, that source of income and food would disappear.

Albert Einstein He stated that if bees disappeared from the face of the Earth, it would not take human beings even four years to disappear. Assuming that the bees became extinct or their world population decreased so much that they could not fulfill their pollination function, the ecological balance of the ecosystems would be negatively affected. All species of animals that depend on plants they would die. It would mean a massive extinction of animal and plant species, since without pollination, they could not reproduce.

Why are the bees disappearing?

There are numerous studies trying to explain why bee populations and honey production are declining. However, the reason for this is not yet fully known.

Different cases have been studied since 2000. For example, one of them is the problem of "Collapse of bee colonies". This problem is that a considerable number of worker bees disappear from the hive suddenly. It is the worker bees that are in charge of pollinating and bringing food to the hive. The causes of this sudden disappearance can be several:

1. By an increase in predators of these bees due to changes in ecosystems.
2. Appearance of diseases that affect bees and spread relatively quickly. An example of a disease is Israel's watery paralysis virus, which causes immobility in the wings and their death.
3. The possibility that bees are affected by Pesticides or other toxic substances used by humans in agriculture.

Other threats to bees are:

• Climate Change. Rising global temperatures are causing an imbalance in the range of many animal and plant species around the world. Animals that could survive in just one temperature band can now spread over larger areas as the temperature has varied. This may have caused the appearance of several new predators that affect the bees and reduce their population. For example, Japan's killer hornets, thanks to climate change, have increased their range. These wasps are lethal to bees, to such an extent that only a few of them can kill an entire hive.

• The air pollution. The human being pollutes the air in an almost widespread way. The concentrations of greenhouse gases are increasing every day and this can affect bees as well. In places where the air is highly polluted, the bee population can be affected. Air pollution also reduces the potency of the chemical messages that flowers give to bees and makes them more difficult to locate.
• The fragmentation and deterioration of habitats. A fragmentation of a habitat negatively influences the area of ​​distribution and expansion of plant and plant species. In this way, the bees have to increase the distances to find the flowers. With the deterioration of habitats, the number of plant species and their richness decrease. With this state of the ecosystem, bees see their resources diminish and there is the possibility that they will have to migrate to other richer ecosystems and take risks that this entails.

• Change in land uses. This is more than evident. With global urbanization, the construction of towns and cities, the soils do not support the necessary vegetation to be able to feed the bees. In urban places, there are no populations of bees or plants that can feed them, nor do they pollinate.
• As we have previously named, the types of crops in agriculture they can also negatively affect bees. If it is monoculture or transgenic. They are also affected by pesticides and herbicides and other chemicals used in agriculture. These chemicals affect the bees' sense of direction, memory, and metabolism.

Measures to reduce negative effects

We have to begin to act against these negative effects that participate in the disappearance of bees. Some of these measures to prevent these effects take a long time, but they are more or less within everyone's reach.

On a broader level, one should to prohibit, diminish or control the use of pesticides and herbicides by controlling bee populations and preventing toxic effects from slowing down the pollination of plants and the disappearance of bees. Also reduce the effects of climate change (for this is underway the Paris Agreement). Restore the most deteriorated ecosystems so that there is no fragmentation, etc. They have to take care of this governments, large companies and farmers. But what can we do?

On a smaller scale, yes, we can contribute our grain of sand to avoid this disaster. They are very easy actions that we can do at home, depending on our conditions:

1. If you have a garden in your house, plant flowers on it. If you have a patio, plant them in a pot, in this way, the bees will have food. Avoid treating your home plants with chemical products, as we would revert to the situation we mentioned earlier. Flowers like mint, rosemary, poppies, etc. they are a favorite for bees. In this way, we can also help bees increase their area of ​​distribution and get closer to urban environments.
2. Both in your pot and in your garden let the weeds grow a little. These weeds also serve as food for native bees.

1. We emphasize the DO NOT use pesticides or chemicals, since, apart from the fact that we negatively affect bees, when they pollinate and make honey in the hive, then those toxins pass to us through the food chain.
2. Whenever you can, buy local natural honey. In this way, you guarantee a little more that being honey extracted from local hives, they are not treated with pesticides.
3. By buying local organic products you can find out if farmers use pesticides or not. Usually these farmers treat the bees with more dedication and do not use anything that is not organic.

Curiosities of bees

Finally, we are going to comment on some curiosities that bees have and of which we may not be aware.

• To produce a kilo of honey, bees must visit around about 10 million flowers.
• A bee can fly throughout its life about 800 km. After all that journey, she alone can only synthesize half a tablespoon of honey. That is why it is vitally important that there are numerous bees per hive.
• The bees they won't attack you if you don't bother them. Bees only attack man or other animals when they see that they are a threat to or annoy their hive and they see that they are a threat to them. They have to work for their queen, so they must return to the hive alive.

With these things I hope that the importance of bees for humans has become clear. We should not be scared of them, but on the contrary, when we go hiking in the countryside and hear many bees, it should be a melody for us, since they are offering us vital ecosystem services for our survival.