Fauna 5

The excess mortality of bees is worrying in Italy and Europe. In Italy, beekeepers even talk of slaughter in recent weeks. Bees are disoriented, especially because of insecticides. A serious threat to biodiversity. But what are bees for?
Italian beekeepers have chosen to alert the authorities to the very high mortality rate of bees. In their viewfinder: pesticides that kill their insects. This year is particularly deadly for honey bees, some professionals have lost almost all their hives.

No bee, no plant

There are 1,000 different species of wild bees in Italy and 20,000 around the world. According to scientists, bees appeared on Earth 100 to 150 million years before humans. They allowed the evolution of flowering plants and guaranteed their survival.
Because insects, and mainly bees, contribute to the pollination of 80% of flowering plant species and cultivated plants. Pollination is an essential element of sexual reproduction of plants. The plants produce pollen that contains male gametes, and this pollen is not mobile. It must therefore be transferred to the receiving part of the female apparatus of each plant. For that, there is the gravity, the wind, or the insects, and therefore the bees.

Without flower, no bee.

Bees feed largely on pollen and nectar. With the artificialization of landscapes, pollinators face long periods of scarcity. To ensure their protection and survival, it is therefore necessary to preserve the diversity of pollen sources by resorting to floral fallows in cultivated areas, on the edges of roads, in private gardens.