Next time you sip your morning coffee, consider the declining honeybee populations that make coffee crops possible.
Beekeepers lost 45.5 percent of their managed honeybee colonies in the United States between April 2020 and April 2021. A phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder is mysteriously wiping out bees globally, which could have devastating effects on food production which requires healthy pollinators to sustain what is an $18 billion business. The EPA theorizes pesticides, mites, or disease could be behind this.
But some ingenious innovators out there are considering the bumblebee in their enterprises. Cornwall-based Green&Blue has created the “Bee Brick,” a specially designed, molded, environmentally friendly brick made out of reclaimed concrete, hollowed out with holes in it for solitary bees, such as the leafcutter, red mason, and other cavity-nesters, to dwell in….