Second, lack of diverse flowers and limited access to real nutrition are the reasons bee are vanishing. When weed grows on farmlands, cultivated plants do not get lots of nutrition, so farmers use herbicides to get rid of it. Farmers are decreasing the variety of flowers by using herbicides for their own profit. In her speech, Spivak said, “Many of these weeds are flowering plants that bees require for their survival”. In addition, the narrator said, “Like humans, bees do best when they eat a balanced diet from many different sources” (qtd. in It’s okay to be smart). When bees are starved of pollen, or receive from a single plant source, their lifespan and immune functions decrease. In addition, the monoculture of California almond tree leaves the bees few choices of flowers. …show more content…
Many replaced their lower-priced crops, like grapes or cotton, with fields of almonds”. Because almond trees are now super productive, hundreds of acres in California need millions upon millions of bees to pollinate. Furthermore, these days, US beekeepers typically make more money from renting out their bees for pollination than they do from producing honey. According to FitzGerald, “In February, when a lot of winter rain sent the California almond crop into bloom, almond farmer Joe Del Bosque rented about 1,500 hives from Grissom for 180 dollars apiece”. As a result, beekeepers fill up huge trucks beehives and crisscross the country seeking pollination work. Bees can be overcrowded and experience stress from the traveling. In Engelhaupt’s article, he wrote, “While California beekeeper Orin Johnson prepares his bees for the coming almond season, hundreds of trucks loaded with beehives are bearing down on his state. They are all headed for the