Alison Benjamin writes:

The oldest love affair in history is between the bee and the flower. It began more than 100m years ago, when nature devised a more efficient way than winds for plants to procreate. About 80% of plant species now use animals or insects to carry pollen grains from the male part of the plant to the female part. The plants developed flowers. Their perfumed scent, colourful displays and sweet nectar are all designed to woo pollinators.

Over time, 25,000 or so species (we still don’t know exactly how many) of bee have evolved globally to play Cupid to specific flowering plants and trees: their short life cycle perfectly synchronised with the blooming of the flowers. On each visit they refuel with nectar, collect pollen to feed their young and in the process become a messenger of love.

But nature’s great lovers are going through a rocky patch, from which they may not recover. It’s in all our interests that this age-old romance endures because about one in three mouthfuls we eat depends on bee pollination, including most fruits and vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices, oil crops, as well as coffee. Together they supply a major proportion of nutrients in the human diet. In addition, fodder crops, plant-derived medicines such as aspirin and morphine, and fibres such as cotton are all bee-pollinated. That’s not to forget that many of the trees that are the lungs of the planet and absorb carbon from the atmosphere are bee pollinated.

Many of the 250 bumblebee species worldwide, whose furry coats and round bodies allow them to fly at cool temperatures, are in drastic decline. Nearly one in four European bumblebee species face extinction; in North America more than a quarter are in decline. Last week, a study reported a decline over a 115-year period that is “consistent with a mass extinction within a few decades” in areas where temperatures are getting hotter. It is just the latest in a long list of scientific papers cataloguing the demise of bees. [Continue reading…]