--- title: TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct | TIME description: The bees are dying and we're to blame. TIME's Bryan Walsh explains colony collapse disorder, and why bees are on the verge of extinction. canonical: https://time.com/video/dZuiDonP/ og:title: TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct og:description: The bees are dying and we're to blame. TIME's Bryan Walsh explains colony collapse disorder, and why bees are on the verge of extinction. og:url: https://time.com/video/dZuiDonP/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/dZuiDonP/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct twitter:description: The bees are dying and we're to blame. TIME's Bryan Walsh explains colony collapse disorder, and why bees are on the verge of extinction. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/dZuiDonP/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/dZuiDonP.m3u8) (1:41)  _Published 2013-08-07. The bees are dying and we're to blame. TIME's Bryan Walsh explains colony collapse disorder, and why bees are on the verge of extinction._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:40 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [A Tortoise Species That Was Feared Extinct Was Found in the Galapagos](/video/rfE7w7Rd/) ### A Tortoise Species That Was Feared Extinct Was Found in the Galapagos [Conservationists Say They Spotted ‘Extinct’ Dolphin in Yangtze River](/video/d3bmiO5d/) ### Conservationists Say They Spotted ‘Extinct’ Dolphin in Yangtze River [Robotic Bees Take Flight](/video/XkcWDl46/) ### Robotic Bees Take Flight --- ## Transcript >> Albert Einstein once supposedly said that if bees disappeared from the face of the earth, mankind would only have four years left to live. There was no evidence that he actually said that, but he does touch on a real concern because the honeybees are disappearing. >> Those are all dead. All [ unk ] >> It's like that. >> The term is called colony collapse disorder and it refers to something that's been happening with honey beehives over the last decade or so. Suddenly, hives are dying. Bees are fleeing the hives for reasons we can't really understand. We lost 43 percent of bee colonies over the last year. That's important 'cause honeybees are a key part of agriculture. They pollinate a number of fruits and vegetables, from almonds to blueberries to apples to cherries, scores of other fruits. There's a number of possible reasons that's causing the colonies of honeybees to collapse. One is pesticides. There's a new class of chemicals called neonicotinoids. They have an impact on bee nervous systems. They have navigation problems. They have flying problems. It seems to kill them in large numbers. Another are parasites and mites that actually attack the beehives themselves. One is called the Varroa mite. It's been around for about 20 years and it's been probably the biggest single cause of bee loss in that time. And there's also the simple that bees are running out of nutrition. They usually depend on flowers, wilderness, wild spaces in order to pollinate, in order to gather pollen for their own hives. But increasingly, farmers, because the price of corn and soya bean has gone up so much in recent years, have been replacing all that open area with crops. And as a result, bees are encountering what's almost like a food desert for them. But the honeybees really do disappear. It's not likely that mankind will follow them in four years, but certainly, our dinners would become a lot less colorful and a lot less varied. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Explains: Why Bees Are Going Extinct","description":"The bees are dying and we're to blame. 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