9781422279137

No one knew what was going on, although there were plenty of theories. Maybe it was the use of cell phones. Maybe it was climate change. Maybe it was a Russian plot! Whatever the reason, it was bad news for bees and it was bad news for people. Bees are a type of pollinator. This means they transfer pollen from one plant to another, which is a necessary step for plants to reproduce. Without bees, hundreds of crops that people raise for food could not grow. An apocalypse is a worldwide disaster, and it wasn’t long before newspapers started calling the bee disappear- ances the “bee-pocalypse.” Scientists scrambled to figure out what was happening. They discovered that bees are facing a host of problems, from diseases to habitat loss— and so are other insects, birds, and mammals that also pollinate plants. Fortunately, now that we understand more about what’s causing the bee-pocalypse and threatening other pollinators, we can do a lot more to stop it.

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