Bees: small creatures, big impact
Bees are among the most important pollinators in Europe. Europe hosts around 2,000 wild bee species, in addition to managed honeybees. Thanks to them, we enjoy fruits, vegetables, nuts, and oilseeds, while Europe’s fields and forests stay diverse and healthy. Around 84% of crops and 80% of wild plants in the EU depend, at least in part, on pollinators, mainly bees. Their contribution is also economic: insect pollination is estimated to be worth €15 billion a year to EU agriculture.
A crisis in the making
Bee populations are collapsing. Monitoring shows that 1 in 3 bee and butterfly species in Europe is in decline, and nearly 1 in 10 wild bee species is threatened with extinction. The European Red List of Bees found that 9.2% of wild bees face extinction risk. For over half of all species, we lack enough data to know their true status, meaning the crisis could be even deeper. Managed honeybees are also struggling: beekeepers in several EU countries report winter losses of 10–30% of colonies, far higher than in the past. Creating more honey bee colonies is not the solution to this problem. The vast majority of bees can only thrive if we address the cause of the problem.
Why are bees disappearing
Bees face multiple pressures. Habitat loss reduces their food and nesting sites. Climate change disrupts flowering patterns and survival. Diseases and parasites weaken colonies. Pesticides weaken and kill bees and add a heavy burden.
Designed to eliminate plant pests, pesticides cause a lot of collateral damage, including to pollinators. They poison bees directly during spraying, leave toxic residues on flowers, and, even at low doses, interfere with bees’ ability to navigate, forage, reproduce, and fight disease. Because bees are exposed to mixtures of pesticides across landscapes, the harmful effects multiply and amplify the impacts of other stressors like climate change and habitat loss.
Unlike climate change or habitat loss, which are multi-factorial challenges, pesticide reduction is directly controllable. It comes down to the chemicals we authorise, how we regulate them, and the farming practices we promote. Hence, tackling pesticides is one of the most direct and efficient levers available to the EU and its Member States to halt the arthropod population collapse. Tackling pesticides is an urgent step for protecting arthropods and for reversing broader biodiversity decline.
Why this matters to you
If bees vanish, our daily lives would change dramatically:
Biodiversity will collapse. Bees are an essential part of ecosystems.
Food availability – Apples, cherries, berries, cucumbers, tomatoes, sunflowers, almonds, and many more could become scarce.
Food prices – Lower yields mean higher prices, costing the EU billions every year.
Nutrition & health – Pollinator-dependent foods are among the healthiest in our diets. Their loss would reduce diet quality and increase risks of malnutrition.
Nature & livelihoods – Without bees, wildflowers would decline, farmland would fall silent, and farmers relying on pollination would lose vital income.
Without urgent action, we risk losing the pollinators our food systems and ecosystems depend on. Protecting bees is about securing the food we eat, the landscapes we cherish, and the ecosystems that sustain life.