The Buzzzznesss of Bees

By now, you’ve probably heard about the horror of colony collapse disorder. Bees around the world are disappearing, dying off, dropping like flies, and no one knows 100% why. But what we do know is that where the bees go, so goes most of our food.

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So far, the business world hasn’t really taken much notice of this problem. I mean, how much is a bee worth, right?

Well, it turns out that bees are worth quite a bit. A new study says that bees are worth a staggering $220 billion a year to the world economy.

Specifically, that value comes from bees’ role as pollinators. Modern industrial farming techniques don’t rely on bees as much as they used to, so insect-based pollination only accounts for 9.5% of agricultural production worldwide, but the loss of bees will still hit businesses and consumers with at least $220 billion in extra costs every year.

Of course, organic foods tend to have a greater reliance on pollination, so they’ll be hit worse.

What does this mean to you? Well, it might be a good idea to try raising your own bees, or even investing in a bee business. Because some day soon, businesses are going to be looking for those bees…