bees!

Emoji spell to save the bees.

This bumblebee is the first bee species in the continental US listed as “endangered”

The adorably named rusty patched bumblebee just became the first bee species in the contiguous United States to be officially categorized as “endangered” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Since the late 1990s, its population has shrunk by 87%, CNN reported.

“The rusty patched bumblebee is among a group of pollinators, including the monarch butterfly, experiencing serious declines across the country,” Tom Melius, the Wildlife Service’s midwest regional director, told CNN. Read more

Bees did go through a pretty rough patch there … and by “there,” we mean 10 years ago. The U.S. bee population hit a low point in 2006 with 2.5 million colonies, but by 2015, that number was up to 2.66 million, a two-decade high. Beekeepers saw the problem and have been working their asses off to reverse it – if anything, we should be worried about them going extinct.

Bee populations have also been going up in other parts of the world. So why were they put in the endangered species list, then? Because seven bee species, all of them from Hawaii, haven’t been doing so well and we need to protect them – that’s what the “endangered” status is all about. It’s more of a tactical move to make sure the government actually gives funds to help those Hawaiian bees’ population go up. By the way, we’re talking about seven species out of the 4,000 ones existing in the U.S. alone. There’s still a shitload of bees out there, is our point.

- Honey is mostly sugar (WoW!) it is 80% sugar and 20% water (double WoW!)

- There are over 20,000 species of bees, but only 4 make HONEY

-Honey is the ONLY food that contains all the substances you need to survive (Including WATER)

-Children under the age of 1 should not eat honey… why? because sometimes it contains bad stuff called botulism and can cause them to get botulism poisoning (that sucks, even infants should taste the deliciousness that is honey)

-Honey will crystallize under optimum temperatures (this has a lot to do with how you store it)

-Bees produce honey to eat during the winter when there are no flowers and no nectar for them.

-A honeybee would only need an ounce of honey to be able to fuel a flight around the world (this makes for a very cultural bee!)