Bees are important. They provide far more than just honey, which is the usual produce that people think of when they think of bees and agriculture. Without them, we would have little of the food that we enjoy today, including the delicious bounty that many of us ate on Independence Day. Imagine a world without soybeans, alfalfa (hay for animals raised for meat), cotton, almonds, apples, oranges, peaches, cherries, tangerines, peppers, and an entire host of other crops vital to our comfortable lives.
Recently, bees have come under fire from us. Among other factors, a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids have been shown to adversely affect the health of bees. The FDA says that there should be more research done, but it will take 5 years. In 5 years, it will be far too late for us.