I love honey bees — know why? Because I love food!

"But what do honeybees even have to do with the food I eat?"

With today being National Honey Bee Day there's no better excuse to learn about the importance of their survival in relation to our own; including their direct impact on our own food supply and the key role they play in keeping the world fed, as well as how we can help support a healthy, thriving honey bee population.

In 2010 honey bees and other pollinating insects helped US farmers to produce approximately $19 billion worth of agriculture crops through their pollinating services¹ — that's an estimated one-third of everything we eat! Sadly, studies show that the worldwide honey bee population is declining rapidly and researches estimate nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the United States have vanished; which is bad news for our food supply and ultimately us.

Imagine a world without tasty food staples like broccoli, asparagus, cantaloupes, coffee, pumpkins, cucumbers, blueberries, watermelons, almonds, apples, cranberries, and cherries²... To name just a few. I don't know about you, but that terrifies me, as I frequently enjoy having these nutritious foods available to me and would like to keep it that way for a long time.

The disappearance of honey bees has been aptly named Colony Collapse Disorder to describe the occurrence of seemingly healthy bees abandoning their hives by the masses, never to return. There is still much research that needs to be done to determine the exact cause of this disorder, but scientists believe there are a combination of factors making the bees sick; including an inadequate food supply, pesticide exposure (such as Monsanto's Roundup), invasive parasitic mites, and a new virus that targets bees immune systems.

Here are some things that you and I can do to help support and save honey bees