00:00Pequeñas, frágiles y aladas, las abejas cargan sobre su vuelo el futuro de nuestra alimentación.
00:07Cada año desaparecen millones de estos insectos, poniendo en riesgo a más del 70% de los cultivos que dependen de su polinización.
00:16Sin ellas, no solo peligra la biodiversidad, también nuestra seguridad alimentaria.
00:21Hoy presentamos una pieza especial de Deutsche Welle que revela cómo el uso intensivo que hacemos de las abejas está acelerando su camino hacia la extinción.
00:51Pero lo que más gente no sabe, los números de las abejas están aumentando en el mundo.
00:56No solo eso, sino que la forma que los humanos usan las abejas hace ellos un problema.
01:01Poner una abeja en tu abeja no ayuda.
01:06Porque estamos salvando los peces mal.
01:15Los animales están involucrados en la pollinación de 90% de los plantes de flujo de flujo.
01:19Y cuando se trata de pollinadores, el honeybee probablemente viene a su mente.
01:24Es porque los animales y los animales tienen un relativo antiguo.
01:28Las abejas han sido gestionados por miles de años.
01:30Hay mucha evidencia que ha tenido un gran papel importante en los culturas de Egipto y Grecia.
01:37Y así, la abeja siempre ha sido muy ríos.
01:41Axel es el presidente del Invertebrate Conservation Committee de la IUCN.
01:45Honebees are native to Asia, Europe, and Africa.
01:50But nowadays they're everywhere except Antarctica.
01:54Apis mellifera is the most common honeybee and the best studied,
01:57although there are another 10 known species.
02:00They're general pollinators, meaning they will pollinate most plants.
02:04And although honeybees are at risk from pests and disease,
02:07the number of colonies worldwide is actually growing.
02:09According to the FAO, managed hives have increased worldwide by 83% since 1961.
02:16Because they are always managed by the beekeepers
02:19and also receive veterinary treatment and so on,
02:24there's no risk that they will become extinct.
02:27But honeybees aren't the only bees.
02:29The general public confounds bees with the honeybee.
02:34This is Isabel, a pollination ecology researcher specializing in urban environments.
02:39It would be the same situation if, for example, you were talking about birds
02:44and people think that when you talk about birds, you talk about chicken.
02:49There are around 20,000 different species of wild bees
02:52and they are the most important wild pollinators.
02:55They're mostly solitary and unlike honeybees, are suited to specific plants,
03:00which makes them much better at pollinating.
03:01A hectare of apples, for example, would require tens of thousands of honeybees to pollinate,
03:09but only hundreds of this wild bee,
03:11because Osmia cornuta is particularly good at apple pollination.
03:15Each flowering plant is strongly connected to a pollinator
03:21that fits accordingly to the lock and key principle.
03:26An entomologist by training, Sabrina is a project manager
03:29at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture.
03:31This perfect fit between flower and its selected pollinator
03:37is the product of an ongoing co-evolution for centuries
03:43that is still operating.
03:46Like the squash bees native to Central and South America.
03:50They're perfectly suited to squash plants.
03:53Their early risers and squash flowers are only open early in the morning,
03:56while the honeybees are still asleep.
03:59Don't like squash?
04:00How about tomatoes, potatoes, or eggplant?
04:02These crops also need wild pollinators,
04:05loud ones like bumblebees to be precise.
04:07Their flowers require a vibrating buzz to release their pollen,
04:10something a bumblebee perfectly provides.
04:13Honeybees just don't have that skill.
04:15But wild bees are in serious decline.
04:18And this doesn't only affect them and their ecosystems,
04:24but our food security as well.
04:27Worldwide, wild bee diversity has been decreasing each year since the 1990s.
04:32Pesticides, intensive agriculture, and especially habitat loss are main drivers.
04:38A recent study found that we may have already lost a quarter of wild bee species,
04:42but assessment is hard due to the lack of global data.
04:45Various regional estimates suggest over 40% of wild bee and butterfly species are threatened.
04:51Farmers are already noticing a difference.
04:53When they walked along a field, everything was full of pollinators.
04:59And nowadays, it's more like everything is calmed down and nobody knows where they are.
05:09This loss of diversity can cause knock-on effects on whole ecosystems.
05:12Less pollinator diversity means fewer wild plants.
05:16This can hurt animals that use them for food or shelter.
05:20And it's also bad for the future of our food.
05:22The yield of cultivator plants is higher when they are visited by a variety of pollinators
05:34compared to when they are visited by only honeybees.
05:37Remember Osmia Cornuta, the apple specialist?
05:40Most of the pollination of apple trees is performed by several species of wild bees.
05:47So, if you don't get these wild bees, you would get a crop of apples that would be reduced.
05:55U.S. crops are already producing less due to wild pollinator decline.
05:59And globally, we're planting more and more of the crops that require animal pollination,
06:04like fruits, vegetables, and oilseeds.
06:07The increase in honeybees hasn't kept up.
06:09This means pollinator dependence has increased around 70% since 1961.
06:16And combined with the decline in wild pollinators means an emergency for the global food supply.
06:21This is especially true in countries with many large monocultures that destroy wild pollinator habitats,
06:26like China and the United States.
06:29Not only that, the way we use honeybees actually makes them a part of the problem.
06:33According to the American Beekeeping Federation,
06:37two-thirds of the 2.7 million honeybee colonies in the U.S. are used for pollination.
06:43Most go to the almond fields in California, where 80% of the world's almonds come from.
06:48Then bees rotate around the country to pollinate other crops.
06:52Nowhere else in the world uses honeybees for pollination like the U.S.,
06:55but the trend is growing in Europe, too, as wild pollinators disappear.
07:00Unfortunately, it's not so good for the honeybees.
07:02They can be exposed to pesticides from the crops or catch diseases from the other colonies.
07:07And these honeybees are also a threat to wild ones.
07:10Within a honeybee hive, you have tens of thousands of individuals that need a lot, a lot, a lot of food.
07:18They will eat most of the floral resources,
07:21and there will not be enough left for the other pollinating species.
07:26If you have many, many bees, then they will probably outcompete this native species very, very fast.
07:34Honeybees can also spread disease to wild bees.
07:37An infected bee can leave some virus on a flower to be picked up by the next wild bee that visits.
07:43It's not the honeybee's fault, but save the bees definitely does not mean adding more into the environment.
07:49There have been a lot of people that thought that they could only save the bees when having their own beehive in the backyard,
08:01and that's the wrong way to conserve pollinators.
08:05So what's the right way?
08:07Industrial agriculture is the biggest threat to all bees.
08:10It uses harmful chemicals and relies on huge fields of one crop.
08:14Ideally, we change our whole food system, but on a personal level, supporting small-scale, sustainable farmers, if viable,
08:21also supports diverse habitats for wild bees.
08:24Even more can be done with a backyard, like leaving native plants alone or planting new ones.
08:30Open, sunny ground or dead logs also make great breeding spots for wild bees.
08:35But most of all, they need more attention.
08:37We need honeybees, but aren't in danger of losing them.
08:40With wild bees, it's another story.
08:44We need honeybees.
08:45We need honeybees.
08:46We need honeybees.
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09:09We need honeybees.
09:10We need honeybees.
