How The Human Diet Will Suffer If Honeybees Disappear

Nearly one-third of the world's crops are dependent on honeybees for pollination, but over the last decade the insects have been dying at unprecedented rates both in the United States and abroad.

A new study strengths the evidence linking pesticides to a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, but the decline of managed honeybee populations has also been blamed on a combination of disease, parasites, poor weather, and the stress of being trucked from orchard-to-orchard to pollinate different crops.

We have few planned defenses against a honeybee disaster. The Farm Bill passed last June allocates less than $2 million a year in emergency assistance to honeybees.

"The bottom line is, if something is not done to improve honeybee health, then most of the interesting food we eat is going to be unavailable," warned Carlen Jupe, secretary and treasurer for the California State Beekeepers Association.

Honeybees as a species are not in danger of extinction, but their ability to support the industry of commercial pollination, and by extension, a large portion of our food supply, is in serious danger.

Here we take a hypothetical look at how the human diet and lifestyle would change if honeybees and other bee pollinators disappeared from our planet one day. A world without honeybees as a stable source of pollination would mean a world without fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

This is the worst case scenario. It's possible that human ingenuity and alternate pollinators can mitigate some of these outcomes, but not necessarily all of them.