One of my favourite comic artists ever. His comics are equal parts bleak & funny. Found at https://pbfcomics.com/comics/the-talk/
One of my favourite comic artists ever. His comics are equal parts bleak & funny. Found at https://pbfcomics.com/comics/the-talk/
It’s a rather large misconception that bees are somehow required for pollinisation. That’s completely underestimating the value of butterflies, and how much they contribute to pollinisation. Even if all bees were to disappear overnight, the impact will hardly be Earth shattering. The most drastic thing that’ll happen is Humans losing an industry.
Without bees there will be a minor blank spot in a niche that already has other insects doing the same.
But that’s assuming that bees are actually dying. There are thousands of species of bee in the world, or even on just a single continent, and they’re doing… Fine… Ish. About as fine as any other creature on Earth being effected by Humans and climate change. The ones everyone is so concerned about is specifically the honey bee.
Honey bees are not even the best pollinators. No, the real concern with the dying of honey bees is that the honey industry will lose money. So honey bees dying is a corporate fear!
The butterflies are indeed dying though.
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/congress-urged-to-spend-100-million-to-save-monarch-butterflies-2024-05-13/
There are different kinds of pollinators. Some bees are what is called buzz pollinators, and they are the best pollinators for a whole bunch of different plants. These bees are struggling, partially because we have too many honey bees who are out-competing them.
Honey bees are doing absolutely fine though. And they’re pretty fucking terrible on other/native pollinators.