Want to save the bees? Here’s what you should know.
By Sara Chodosh
Most bees are solitary. This may come as a surprise, especially if your bee knowledge comes from reading about colony collapse disorder and that one time you saw The Bee Movie once on a plane. To most people, bees are fat, buzzing, social insects that live in hives suspended in trees — they’re certainly not skinny little buggers that dig holes to lay eggs.
But whoops, surprise! It turns out most bees are in fact small, solitary, stingless creatures that don’t produce any honey at all.
How is it possible that you didn’t know this? In any case, you’re not alone. A new studyfound that 99 percent of people think that bees are critical or important parts of the ecosystem, but the vast majority couldn’t even guess the number of bee species within 1,000. The average person said there were about 50, when there are actually about 4,000. Most of the participants in this survey couldn’t even discriminate between bees and non-bees in a picture.
“Who cares if I know how many species there are? I care about the bees!” you might say to yourself. And maybe you have a point. You don’t have to be a pollinator expert…
