We depend on them, and not just for the honey. International Bee Day is a great opportunity to make some buzz for bees, one of the most important animals on the planet
By Gideon Bacher and Yossi Od, Zveta - Science and Environment News Agency
In recent decades, the bees are in danger and their number in the world is falling - a major cause for concern, as Albert Einstein is often quoted: "The day the bees disappear, humans will have only four years left to survive on Earth." Therefore, we must make every effort to save them and increase their number.
Despite the shrinking of the natural areas, the city seems to have remained a refuge for the bees. Why in the city? Because the bees in the city enjoy rich landscaping and a variety of flowers, which are watered throughout the year, providing nectar throughout, and which is mostly not sprayed, chemically fertilized or genetically modified.
In many places in the world and in Israel, efforts are being made to protect bees in cities. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem we have decided to contribute our part to the cultivation and preservation of the world of bees, and as a result to all ecosystem services. We joined the "project to restore the disappearing bees and pollinators to the city and its surroundings" led by Yossi Od, one of the The environmentalists of the Israeli Society for Ecology and Environmental Sciences. As part of the project, beehives are erected at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where bees grow naturally and not for the purposes of honey production. In the future we intend to cultivate nectar-rich flowers and later we will even build "hotels for beneficial insects", boxes that attract solitary bees, pollinators and other beneficial arthropods. This is another small step for a small but extremely important insect, as an integral part of the climate diplomacy led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Is there electricity in the air? These are the bees
- The buzzing of the bees initiates the release of scents in the flowers
- Research in molecular genetics and genetic engineering in fertilization mechanisms examines the self-fertilization ability of trees without the help of bees
- A virus discovered in Israel is responsible for the disappearance of the bees
- When do humans and bees act like "it won't happen to me?"
