Do you like honey? What about bees?
Bees are becoming fussy about what they eat. The cause, according to the Journal of Experimental Biology, is pesticides. Bees refuse to take nectar which has been treated with pesticides and so the food supply of the colony is reduced. This is a problem, because less food means fewer bees.
A European honey bee (Apis mellifera) extracts nectar from an Aster flower using its proboscis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pesticides also interfere with communication between bees (they communicate by dancing). Experiments have shown that bees that have eaten pesticides dance less or in some cases stop dancing altogether.
If this doesn’t bother you, it should. We need bees, but not only for honey. Without bees, we would lose 80% of insect pollination. This would affect fruit, vegetables and even meat. If we don’t want to end up eating only bread and water, we need to protect our little black and yellow friends.
Listen below
Study the words
fussy– not easy to please
according to- on the authority of
pesticides-chemicals used in agriculture
nectar-substance used by bees to make honey
less-opposite of more (for uncountable nouns)
fewer-opposite of more (for countable nouns)
altogether-completely
bother-worry
end up-do something in the end/as a final resort
Listen on audioboo (and subscribe to i-tunes podcast): http://audioboo.fm/boos/822176-why-bother-about-bees
Download the takeaway test: Bees TinyTexts Takeaway
Related articles
- Commonly used pesticide turns honey bees into ‘picky eaters’ (seeddaily.com)
Tiny Texts 
Elizabeth Jans
Being a Business English Trainer ,I would like to download the audio clips and play during the session.Any help
tinytexts
Click on the link below the glossary (listen to audioboo here), then click on the itunes button. You can download the audios to your itunes library.Hope that helps!