The Short(er) Life of a Bee

Bees have been recognized as one of the most important animals on the planet.  As one of the primary pollinators found across the world, they play a large role in the maintenance of our way of life (Hung et al., 2018). While they may be small, their impact is monumental. Unfortunately, a study by the University of Maryland has found that bees may not be living nearly as long as the had only 50 years prior. The study found that, in a controlled, laboratory environment, the life span of each individual honey bee was, on average, 50% shorter than the average life span of bees in the 1970s (Nearman & Van Engelsdorp, 2022). In large, this is due to several viruses spreading throughout the bee population, the rise in population of their natural predators, and the weakening of their entire population due to pesticides. Now, what does this mean looking to the future? The short life of these honey bees, is assumed to be taking place amongst the entire bee population. Bees, along with other pollinating insects, are responsible for pollinating 75% of the plants worldwide (Hung et al., 2018). Without these vital workers, we can expect to see a sharp decline in availability of produce and any products with heavy plant needs. Bees play a large role in maintaining the fragile balance of our ecosystem. If bees die off too quickly, many species of plants will go extinct and our resources will be depleted even further. This will affect our economy, nutrition, environment, and much more (Hung et al., 2018). From this study, the University of Maryland is looking to bee populations in other countries to see if these effects can be observed across the board. 

References

Nearman, A., & Van Engelsdorp, D. (2022). Water provisioning increases caged worker bee lifespan and caged worker bees are living half as long as observed 50 years ago. Scientific Reports; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-21401-2

Hung, K.-L. J., Kingston, J. M., Albrecht, M., Holway, D. A., & Kohn, J. R. (2018). The worldwide importance of honey bees as pollinators in natural habitats. Proceedings: Biological Sciences, 285(1870), 1–8.

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