Infographic: How Are Dying Bees Affecting Our Lives?

Getting stung by a bee can hurt, but losing bees forever can hurt even more. It may be hard to see why bees are so important to us, but did you know that 1 of every 3 bites of food we take comes from a pollinated plant or an animal that depends on bee pollination? And yet, since the mid-2000s, bees have been mysteriously vanishing.

A world without bees would be a different place. A lot of crops currently depend on them, including fruits like almonds and cherries, vegetables like onions and pumpkins, and field crops like soybeans and sunflowers. A loss of bees could mean economic hardships for farms and the food industry and would lead to a rise in food costs.

In 2006, beekeepers started reporting that seemingly healthy bees were simply abandoning their hives in mass numbers, never to return. Researchers call the mass disappearance colony collapse disorder (CCD). Since then, around one third of honey bee colonies in the U.S. have vanished.

Source: http://www.beesfree.biz