While calls to save the bees are nothing new, there is a new effort in Connecticut to replenish local bee populations, as reported by Sydney Reynolds and Ken Houston of WTNH News 8 in their article “Over 2 Million Bees Distributed Throughout Connecticut.” One way the state’s residents are working to protect bees is through an effort by Mike’s Beehives in Torrington, where interested beekeepers can buy packages of bees. Reynolds and Houston say that over 2 million bees will be provided in just one of Mike’s Beehives bees pick-up weekends.
So, why is it so important to increase bee populations? The answer to this question is that a large number of crops and ecosystems are reliant on insect pollination that comes largely from bees. Many bees spend their lives transferring pollen from male plants to female plants, which allows these female plants to create seeds. Bees are expert pollen collectors, making them the best species for this vital job. If bees were gone, a plethora of plant species would struggle to produce seeds due to the loss of their main pollinator. Without these species, the earth would suffer an extreme loss of resources and biodiversity. This means that it is essential to keep bee populations high.
Unfortunately, the effort to do so is getting increasingly harder and more urgent. This is due to the fact that there are unusual amounts of bees dying due to factors such as global warming and pesticides. However, it is still possible to restore bee populations back to healthy levels. If you are looking to get involved in saving the bees, one way to do it would be to look into beekeeping, an endeavor that can be done with the help of Mike’s Beehives.