Environmentalists are planning to drench the Environmental Protection Agency in the carcasses of millions of dead honeybees this week to underscore the plight of the pollinating insect.
A coalition of conservation groups and bee keepers is planning to make the dead-bee delivery of nearly 3 million expired insects sometime this week.
“The millions of dead bees that have accompanied us during the Keep the Hives Alive Tour are carrying a message — this is just a tiny fraction of the devastation beekeepers are dealing with year after year,” said Larissa Walker, director of the pollinator program at the Center for Food Safety.
Bees have taken a hit from chemicals and other environmental hazards in recent years, which have caused entire colonies to be wiped out. The EPA is the primary agency associated with confronting the hazards facing bees, which are crucial to the pollination of fruits and vegetables and keeping crop yields high.
“It’s well past time for policymakers to wake up and take action to curb the use of the toxic pesticides that are harming pollinators, people and our environment,” Walker said.
The Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, organized the delivery as part of a week-long series of events around the country to promote awareness about the bee problem.
