Where Have All the Bees Gone?

Pollinators in Crisis

  • Interest Level: Grade 6 - Grade 12
  • Reading Level: Grade 8

Apples, blueberries, peppers, cucumbers, coffee, and vanilla. Do you like to eat and drink? Then you might want to thank a bee.

Bees pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. Around the world, bees pollinate $24 billion worth of crops each year. Without bees, humans would face a drastically reduced diet. We need bees to grow the foods that keep us healthy.

But numbers of bees are falling, and that has scientists alarmed. What’s causing the decline? Diseases, pesticides, climate change, and loss of habitat are all threatening bee populations. Some bee species teeter on the brink of extinction. Learn about the many bee species on Earth—their nests, their colonies, their life cycles, and their vital connection to flowering plants. Most importantly, find out how you can help these important pollinators.

“If we had to try and do what bees do on a daily basis, if we had to come out here and hand pollinate all of our native plants and our agricultural plants, there is physically no way we could do it. . . . Our best bet is to conserve our native bees.” —ecologist Rebecca Irwin, North Carolina State University

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978-1-5415-3463-6
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Interest Level Grade 6 - Grade 12
Reading Level Grade 8
Genre Science, Young Adult
Category 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, 5KN: Traditional Nonfiction, Animals
Copyright 2020
Publisher Lerner Publishing Group
Imprint Twenty-First Century Books ™
Language English
Number of Pages 104
Publication Date 2020-02-04
Text Type Informational/Explanatory
BISACS YAN003010, YAN050080, YAN050090
Dewey 595.79/9
Dimensions 6 x 9
Lexile 1060
ATOS Reading Level 7.3
Accelerated Reader® Points 3.0
Features Awards, Bibliography/further reading, Reviewed, Source notes, and Starred Reviews

Author: Rebecca E. Hirsch

Rebecca E. Hirsch is an award- winning children's author with a PhD in plant biology. Her picture books include Plants Can't Sit Still and Night Creatures: Animals That Swoop, Crawl, and Creep while You Sleep. She lives with her husband and three children in State College, Pennsylvania. You can visit her online at rebeccahirsch.com.

Awards

  • Dogwood Readers Award, Winner, 2023
  • Booklist Top 10 Books on the Environment & Sustainability for Youth, Winner, 2020

Reviews

School Library Journal

“An informative survey for students of biology and environmental science . . .”—School Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

“Accessible and concise . . .”—Kirkus Reviews

Booklist

“An important resource for all libraries.”—starred, Booklist