No bees, no dinner

With Thanksgiving around the corner, now is the perfect time to talk about the importance of bees to our food supply. Most people aren't aware of the fact that 1/3 of the food they eat wouldn’t exist without honey bees and other pollinators! In order for a flower to turn into a fruit (anything with seeds on the inside—so this includes all sorts of things we normally think of as veggies, like cucumbers and pumpkins), it must be pollinated by a honey bee or other pollinator. 

In order to spread awareness of how essential bees are to our food supply one of our generous sponsors, Whole Foods Market, created the image above. The first photograph shows a normal Whole Foods Market produce section, while the second shows the same section without all the produce that comes from plants dependent pollination (52% of the produce!) This image shows what supermarkets everywhere will look like if bees continue to die off at their  current rate of 44% per year (up 3.5% from the 2014-2015 year!) Our diets will be severely restricted, and a lot of the nutrients we need to be healthy will be missing. Your Thanksgiving dinner will have no pumpkin pie, no cranberry sauce, and no green beans, and your stuffing will be missing a few key ingredients!

These photographs highlight the seriousness of the situation. We need to help the bees in order to help ourselves. This Thanksgiving, add bees in the list of things you're grateful for. If you're in the giving mood, you can always say "thank you bees!" by donating to Planet Bee Foundation, and helping us spread our message to thousands of children across Northern California. Keller Estate is proud to support Planet Bee Foundation and we hope you'll consider the bees too! Join us for our Honey Harvest 2016 and support the planet!