Why Do We Eat Bees?

It is mid summer, you are sitting in the grass at your local park. The breeze is blowing through your hair and the sun is shining on your skin. You start to hear a faint buzzing in your ear, steadily getting louder. You look out the corner of your eye and catch a glimpse of yellow and black. You go to pick up the magazine sitting on the ground beside you, slowly raising the book, ready to strike the invader. WAIT! Stop to think about what you are doing. You are about to brutally murder one of the hardest working creatures on the planet. Instead of taking away the innocent insect’s life, you should be thanking it and the rest of the bee population for pollinating nearly 400 different species of plants that are important to the agriculture business.
This is a reality we may soon have to face, however, due to an increased use of pesticides and deadly parasites that are invading bee colonies. The scary truth is that, without bees, human’s diets would suffer tremendously because products such as almonds, apples, cherries, and many other fruits and veggies such as blueberries, avocado, broccoli, most leafy greens, cucumbers, pumpkins, and many more would cease to exist. Less production of food crops, due to a decrease in bees, will ultimately lead to worldwide famine and poverty. Freshwater will start drying up as well because there will be less trees for water retention to occur. With less water and diminishing food, humans will die of thirst and starvation. Fertility would also suffer a setback, followed by a drop in the rate of reproduction. Consequently, we wouldn’t be able to sustain humanity and would be forced into extinction within a few hundred years
However, a report from the Center for Biological Diversity shows that more than 700 species of bees are on the decline and nearly a quarter is at risk of extinction (Worland). 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 disappeared (Hagopian). This epidemic is often referred to as bee colony collapse disorder. Researchers have been scrambling to come up with an accurate explanation and an effective strategy to stop the disorder, and in turn, save humans from extinction. They have found that since the end of World War 2, the use of pesticides in agriculture has increased exponentially (Daftardar). When bees are exposed to these pesticides, it attacks their central nervous system, leading to muscle paralysis and death. Along with pesticides, parasites known as Varrao mites are also responsible for their death. The disease inflicted by these mites can result in bees losing legs or wings, essentially killing them. A study from 2016 found 35 pesticides and fungicides, some at lethal doses, in the pollen collected from bees that were used to pollinate food crops in five U.S. states. “In another research study, bees that contacted pollen contaminated with fungicides ended up