Bees around the globe are under threat from climate change, diseases, vandalism, theft, the persistent and the continuous loss of bee-friendly forage through habitat destruction, urbanization, and in South Africa in particular, the Working for Water Programme.
These insects are responsible for pollination to crops worth around R1 400-billion to the population of the world in terms of being fed. If they all disappeared overnight, so would 9, 5-percent of the total value of global agriculture production used for human food. (“Ecological Economics” journal, Dr Josef Settele from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Halle, Germany)