> many people seem to think bees are on the edge of extinction.
There are 20000 species of bees. Europe has a 10% of the bee diversity with 1965 species present. Only in the European Union, a 9.1% of those have a status of endangered and another 5% are near endangered, this means that more than 100 species have troubles to survive, just in Europe.
Is a fact, not a just a though, that Ammobates dusmeti, Nomada siciliensis or Andrena labiatula, among other, are critically endangered.
But the real problem is that for the majority of all European species of bees (EU + rest of Europe) we just don't know what is happening. A 56% of the European bees are tagged as "Data Deficient". Even worse, there are 300 species of bees that are endemic (not found anywhere out of Europe). Most of them in the Mediterranean.
About trends on population, we know that 150 species are in a declining state and 13 are growing. For the rest, a solid 79% of the European species, we don't even know if they are increasing or decreasing its population in the last decades.
I used to run in a stretch of road on the outskirts, grass fields on both sides, from a certain sunny week every year, you could see quite a number of dead bees on the sidewalk, like 1 or 2 every 2 metres for 400 metres. Something that never noticed anywhere else
That's where you are supposed to see them, kind of, no big surprise here. It may sound surprising to some, given that bees travel by air, but they aren't good at crossing roads. When returning home after collecting the nectar they fly low and get literally hit by cars. So, apparently that place where you were running had a colony of bees on one side of the road, and their preferred food on the other, so a lot of bees were commuting daily over that dangerous place.
and then the whole phenominon moves up the food chain to crows, specificaly young crows that discover that they can get easy pickings along
certain stretches of roads,only to become road kill themselves,see it each year about this time
anapolis valley to HRM
There are 20000 species of bees. Europe has a 10% of the bee diversity with 1965 species present. Only in the European Union, a 9.1% of those have a status of endangered and another 5% are near endangered, this means that more than 100 species have troubles to survive, just in Europe.
Is a fact, not a just a though, that Ammobates dusmeti, Nomada siciliensis or Andrena labiatula, among other, are critically endangered.
But the real problem is that for the majority of all European species of bees (EU + rest of Europe) we just don't know what is happening. A 56% of the European bees are tagged as "Data Deficient". Even worse, there are 300 species of bees that are endemic (not found anywhere out of Europe). Most of them in the Mediterranean.
About trends on population, we know that 150 species are in a declining state and 13 are growing. For the rest, a solid 79% of the European species, we don't even know if they are increasing or decreasing its population in the last decades.