Millions of bees are dying off, with alarming consequences for our environment and our food supply.
We rely on bees to pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of most of the world’s food. Imagine no almonds, fewer apples and strawberries, less alfalfa to feed dairy cows, and the list goes on.
What happens if the bees disappear? It’s simple: No bees, no food.
Scientists point to several causes behind the problem, including global warming, habitat loss, parasites and a class of bee-killing insecticides known as neonicotinoids (or neonics).
When seeds are treated with neonics, the chemicals work their way into the pollen and nectar of the plants — which, of course, is bad news for bees and other pollinators. Worse, for the bees and for us, neonics are about 6,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT.
Right now, we’re letting big agrichemical companies use more of the chemicals that are known to kill bees just as we’re in the midst of an unsustainable die-off in bee populations. That has to change.
To save the bees we need to phase out and then ban the use of neonics and we need to ensure that they are not replaced with equally or more dangerous chemicals.
We’re working to get campuses, cities, and states to ban the sale of bee-killing pesticides for our homes, parks and gardens
UConn Becomes Bee-Friendly!
We worked to address this widespread problem by taking action locally. We worked with our partners at BeeCampus USA to qualify UConn Storrs to be the FIRST Bee Friendly Campus in Connecticut. Students followed BeeCampus’s 7 step checklist which included establishing a Bee Campus Committee at UConn to create a campus pollinator habitat plan, create service learning projects, work with campus departments to offer courses on pollinators, and working with dining services to hang up signage to educate the campus community.
But the work doesn’t stop there! Students continue to Save the Bees on campus by volunteering at Spring Valley Farms to clean and prepare their beehives, hold educational panels and movie screenings, and educate children at local elementary schools about the importance of bees.
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