I was in my yard the other day, thinking about having to mow soon. The clover and dandelions are in full bloom in my yard, but I noticed something was missing. There were no honeybees working the blossoms.
While I’m not a fan of wasps and other stinging insects, I have always thought of the honeybee as being friendly and will only sting when threatened or protecting the hive. Since 2006 beekeepers have been noticing their honeybee populations have been dying off at increasingly rapid rates. Subsequently researchers have been 
scrambling to come up with an accurate explanation and an effective strategy to save the bees and in turn save us Homo sapiens from extinction.
Perhaps the biggest foreboding danger of all facing humans is the loss of the global honeybee population. The consequence of a dying bee population impacts man at the highest levels on our food chain, posing an enormously grave threat to human survival. Since no other single animal species plays a more significant role in producing the fruits and vegetables that we humans commonly take for granted yet require near daily to stay alive, the greatest modern scientist Albert Einstein once prophetically remarked, “Mankind will not survive the honeybees’ disappearance for more than five years.” In the last half decade alone 30% of the national bee population has disappeared and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the U.S. have perished. , research has found that a new class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, increases the honeybees’ susceptibility to a specific parasite—the varroa mite (these mites have been around since the 1980s but weren’t known to cause any serious problems until the bees started disappearing).
Alone, neither factor poses a species-level threat to honeybees, but the combination of the two led to the catastrophe that ultimately came to be known as colony collapse disorder. Many experts believe that honeybees are not in any imminent danger of extinction. The strange thing is that no one knows exactly how the interaction of bad pesticides and this parasite caused bee colonies to collapse. Some researchers have argued that the pesticides make the queen more susceptible to varroa mite, which kills her reproductive capabilities and causes other members of the hive to give up and depart for greener pastures, so to speak. Others think it’s that the neonicotinoids cause a disruption in the homing mechanisms of the honeybees that prevents them from navigating back home, though it’s unclear how the mites play a role. In both cases, the result is the same: an empty hive. In the last two or three years, bee populations have stabilized. Both the U.S. and several European countries have passed regulations that restricts the use of pesticides and fungicides that are suspected to have played a role in CCD to begin with.
If the bee population were to continue to decline, it would severely impact U.S. crop production and farmers' costs. The crops that most depend on bee pollination include almonds, blueberries, apples, pumpkins, watermelons, and pears. Not only is 90 percent of the 
watermelon crop dependent on honeybees, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, but pollination by bees is essential to ensure a melon that is evenly shaped and symmetrical. Honeybees are responsible for pollinating about 90 percent of the cherries in the United States, most of which come from Washington State. Sweet cherry trees require the pollinating activities of honeybees in order to produce enough fruit for a commercially viable crop. The rapeseed crop, better known for its common end product, canola oil, is one that is almost completely dependent on honeybees for pollination, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. And without canola oil — well, there are alternatives, but cooking might get a whole lot more difficult — a relatively cheap, popular, neutral-tasting, and heart-healthy option for cooking. Folks should be encouraged to embrace more natural lawns, with flowers for bees rather than manicured grass.
The consequences a honeybee extinction would have held for human existence are severe. About one-third of all crops – including almost all fruits and nongrain vegetables – are pollinated by honeybees. I would hate to live in a world without bees. We’d still have oatmeal, but we wouldn’t be able to have blueberries in our oatmeal. Feel free to comment on this post and be sure to hit the “Like” button at the end.
