Albert Einstein once said that “if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live”. While this may seem alarming, – even paranoid – there is cause for concern.

Bees help to pollinate crops that produce one-third of the global food supply, including nuts, melons and berries, citrus fruits, apples, onions, cucumbers, coconuts, tomatoes, coffee and cocoa.

A Cornell University study estimated that honey bees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States.

If bees were to become extinct, it would mean that we might have to pick up a basket of pollen in one hand, hold a brush in the other, and dab at every single flower.

Such a procedure is followed in China, after pesticides used in pear orchards wiped out bees in parts of Sichuan in the 1980s. However, the process is tiresome, labour-intensive, and slow, seeing as one bee colony can pollinate up to 300 million flowers a day.

Several causes have been cited for the decline in bee population – use of pesticides, encroachment of natural places by urbanisation, changing weather patterns, and radiation from mobile phones.

Picture by S. Subramanium

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