4 ms·
Most crops are not. Many plants rely on specific insects for pollination. And domesticated honey bees can never hope to match the rest of the insect world in nu
by tfourb 4y ago
Most crops are not. Many plants rely on specific insects for pollination. And domesticated honey bees can never hope to match the rest of the insect world in numbers.
- rcme 4y agoYou wouldn't need domesticated bees to match the rest of the insect world's numbers. You'd just need to enough to pollinate crops. And bees can pollinate many, many different types crops. Also, you can always pollinate by hand if need be, which is how vanilla in Madagascar is pollinated. I'm not saying declining insect numbers are good, I'm just saying worrying about a crop-apocalypse is probably unfounded.
- morelisp 4y agoIf every foodstuff costing as much per flower as vanilla - a spice usable in famously small quantities - isn't a crop-apocalypse, what is?
- rch 4y agoMason bees, for instance, do ~3x the pollination work per-bee, and are relatively easy to accommodate in any garden or yard: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_bee https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_bee This doesn't make the overall collapse in biodiversity and insect biomass any less serious.