By Melanie Pace | Broadcast Reporter
Saving the bees is all the buzz among conservationist groups.
According to Greenpeace, honeybees do about 80 percent of pollinating worldwide – which means they pollinate 70 out of 100 of the main human food crops.
Honeybees are an easy cause to get behind. Who doesn’t love honey? Eating? Even if you do not consume a largely plant-based diet, there has to be at least one out of those 70 crops that you would be sad to live without.
A Texas ordinance passed with the help of the American Honey Bee Protection Agency, provides for the relocation of wild or abandoned bees. But what can we, as students, do to support the honeybee population?
Being environmentally friendly is not always the most practical solution for college students. There are times when it is easy to prioritize bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store, but during busy or stressful periods these small changes are often forgotten.
The trick to being green is starting small. Support your local farms by buying produce at the farmer’s market, avoid buying clothes from fast fashion brands, and reduce your waste by eating leftovers and using reusable water bottles.
As for saving the bees, helping them does not require zipping yourself into a bee suit and working with hives in 100 degree weather.
Buy local honey, make a simple home for solitary bees out of wood or donate to bee conservationist groups like the AHBPA, which is based in Austin.
We should also work towards making our campus bee-friendly. Installing solitary bee havens, which look a little like bird houses, would help give free-roaming bees a place to store their pollen and eggs.
Creating environmentally-friendly habits needs to start on a small-scale in order to be integrated into a lifestyle. Find a cause, and then find ways to incorporate that cause into the everyday. No part is small enough not to play at all.
