Happy World Bee Day!
There’s a day for just about everything, and the United Nations has designated May 20 as the day to celebrate the pollinators dwelling in hives, fields and gardens around the globe.
And there’s good reason to pay attention to bees.
“There are 20,000 species of bees around the world and a lot of these bees are in decline,” says Hien Ngo, a pollinator expert with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
That includes honeybees, of course, but Ngo says they only make up a fraction of all the kinds of bees in the world. Climate change, pesticides and habitat loss are putting many of those species at risk.
“Bees really provide for us in many ways — food provisioning, human well-being. They’re important for our culture, dating back thousands of years in terms of heritage, inspiration of art,” Ngo says.
They even provide inspiration for TikTok, where Erika Thompson, a professional beekeeper in Austin, Texas, shares her work.