LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — There are more than 1,000 species of twig-nesting, ground-nesting, and parasitic bees in Nevada that play an important role in our ecosystem when pollinating hundreds of different plants and flowers across the state. But those bees are under threat with bee populations across the country declining rapidly since the early 2000s.
The extreme heat in southern Nevada stresses and kills bees and forces them from their hives leaving empty and even melted hives behind. But it’s more than just the heat, pesticides along with not having enough plants to pollinate and colony collapse disorder are to blame.
Rollie McHughes is a master gardener and resident expert on bees at the Springs Preserve. He said honeybees are one of the most important.
“If we didn’t have bees, we wouldn’t have one-third of the food that we eat,” He said. “It basically affects our honeybees. The honeybee is our main pollinator because there are so many of them.”
He said certain plants help the bees. “They may be specific to a certain plant they pollinate, and that plant may be under stress. So, if that plant goes away, the bees go with it. So we have to make sure if they only have certain plants they pollinate that we maintain those plants.”