Why are bees so important in human life?

Now that it is fashionable (again) to talk about bees, their disappearance, their consequences and the creation of robotic bees for pollination, I am going to try to clarify a little why bees are so necessary for our survival.

As Albert Einstein rightly said, bees are very important for human development because without them, 60% of the fruits and vegetables we consume today would disappear if they were not pollinated.

Of the 100 crop species that supply 90% of the world's food, bees pollinate more than 70% of it. In addition, they pollinate more than 25,000 species of flowering plants. Without these insects, agricultural activity would virtually disappear, leaving many families without an income source.

A systematic disappearance of the species would imply serious imbalances in the world economy, as they are related to the generation of billions of dollars annually in agricultural products.

Since 2000, the problem of "Colony collapse" has been studied, whereby a considerable number of worker bees in a hive disappear abruptly. The causes may be an increase in predators or the arrival of diseases, such as the Israeli watery paralysis virus. Scientists also propose changes in the environment caused by pesticides and other toxic substances as causes.

Some curiosities about bees:

• That to produce a kilo of honey, they must visit about 10 million flowers.

• That a worker bee can fly 800 km in a lifetime and only produce half a spoonful of honey.

• They don't attack the man if they don't mind.

I hope this has made it a little clearer to you why they are so necessary for our survival.