What would happen if all the bees were eliminated?
Most of us would like to say goodbye to the last mosquito but nobody wants to eliminate all the bees. Naturally, it would be nice to keep all the pleasant things and remove all the pests from our planet. But such a project would most likely lead to a chain of disasters. The world of nature is a complicated series of overlapping cycles. The bees depend upon nectar rich flowers, and certain plants depend upon the bees to hand on life to their seeds. The plants depend upon moist soil and the soil gathers its riches with the help of microscopic decay bacteria. These busy bacteria break up the remains of every bug, every fallen leaf into chemicals that plants can use as food. Last year’s bees helped to enrich the soil for the following year’s plants. So do last year’s mosquitoes and all the other fallen bugs and beetles. Every plant and animal lives a life that overlaps with many others. Every living thing on this planet depends on many other living things and hands on help to a long chain
