Ways We Negatively Impact The Bee Pollination Cycle

Unfortunately, there are many ways we inhibit bees and other pollinators with our actions. It is almost unavoidable that we are damaging the cycle in so many ways. Here is a short list of some of the biggest factors that are reducing the bee population and interfering with their life-cycle.

Pollution- Air quality, oddly enough matters to bees. Pollution, as in chemicals that float off in the air can stick to bees which can ruin a bee’s internal biological system. Or some chemicals kill of the good bacteria inside them and then allow any pathogen that enters them to have extremely negative consequences and can bring disease to the rest of the colony

Light Pollution- Artificial light attracts insects of the flying variety. This can bring in bees too, potentially trapping them in an enclosure with the light where they are unable to escape. OR wearing them down and having them fall victim to a predator.

Pesticides- This does a lot of damage to bees. And so much more too. If the pesticide is not potentially responsible for outright killing a bee from getting sprayed by it, they can catch it from absorbing it off of a flower that the murder chemical landed on. OR kill the flower or whatever local flora so that way the bees have no nourishment. This also leads to a loss of habitat and decreases biodiversity, which slowly shrinks the numbers of all local flora and fauna.

Climate Change- As the weather moves to more extremes with both high and lows, as well as out of season weather patterns, this becomes one the biggest factors bees face. The out of season weather change can result in freezes that can either destroy crops in a large scale forcing the bees to search for a new home near better crops. Or leaves them stranded if they are unable to relocate. These surprise patterns can also confuse bee whether to hibernate or migrate which can often lead to them freezing to death. And to round it out this can also shift reproductive habits which reduce overall colony size. And at the other end the increased temperatures are lending themselves to African honey bees which become invasive on the local bees (typically common European Honey Bee) who are unable to cope with being attacked by the larger more aggressive bee.