In turn, the honey hunters are rewarded with a good income and confidence the giant bees will return to their nests after harvest. The men respect the bees because their livelihood depends on it. We should all respect bees, however, as we depend on them and other pollinators for much of our food. Imagine a world with no bananas or beans, no lettuce or almonds, no tomatoes or cucumbers. These and countless crops, from onions and carrots to sunflowers and cinnamon, rely on wild insects for reproduction.
Pollinators are critical to much more than what fills our stomachs.
The loss of a pollinator could cause the collapse of an ecosystem. In some tropical communities, for instance, figs support as much as 80 percent of vertebrates. In the western United States, rufous hummingbirds pollinate wildflowers that help recolonize deforested areas and prevent erosion, according to William Calder, ecologist at the University of Arizona-Tucson. Bats are essential pollinators of trees that support many species in Samoa's rainforest canopy. Low bush blueberries sustain populations of birds and black bears in the North American Arctic.