Bees are flying insects belonging to the super family Apoidea. They are easily distinguishable from other insects due to their large hind feet. These feet have pollen baskets of stiff hairs which are used to collect pollen. They feed on pollen and nectar and this nectar is made into honey inside the bee’s digestive system.
There are approximately 20,000 species of bees; either being social, solitary or parasitic. Parasitic bees go into the nests of other bees. They are extensively valuable as agents of cross-pollination. When considering the importance of bees then it is necessary to realise that many plants are entirely dependent on particular types of bees for their reproduction. Were these bees to disappear, the plants would also disappear.
These chaps certainly aren’t pests
Britain’s honeybees have suffered disastrous losses. It has been shown that one in three hives have failed through the winter and spring time. Why should this matter? Well it leaves us with a potential crisis on our hands. The implications of fewer bees can affect us in more ways than one. Bees do not just provide us with honey, they serve many purposes which I am sure are taken for granted. Fewer honeybees would indeed mean we would have less honey, but considering that we Brits mostly consume honey from other countries, this would not be a huge problem, apart from perhaps a higher price. Okay, so we could still import our affected foods from other countries, but with honeybees also dying on a similar scale around the world then our global food production is in trouble! The most obvious thing we can do is find the culprit and hopefully a solution. This requires research and ultimately money to fund this.
Luckily there are also measures which can be taken which do not cost money – and perhaps the most important one is tighter pest control. There are many reasons for the decrease of bees, mostly linked to the effects of viruses, parasites and pesticides. In many cases the use of agricultural pest controls and insecticides have had the negative side effects of killing many bees which are necessary for maintaining the crop. If pesticides are safety tested to ensure that they do not contain chemicals which are toxic to bees then the situation is likely to be improved. Why would this help with the low numbers of bees? It has been found that pesticides which are widely used can interfere with the sophisticated communication systems of honeybees, impairing their memory.
Pestercides don’t help
It has been known for commercial honeybee hives to suffer from what is known as “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), which is where the male worker bees abandon an otherwise healthy hive, therefore leaving a great number of bee boxes empty. Although the reasons for this are largely unknown, it is suspected that toxic pesticides have played a part. It has been necessary for some farmers to actually rent bees from keepers in order to pollinate their crops.
Bees are being killed off at an alarming rate. When the bees die, they are generally not in the hives. It is not exactly known why the bees are being disorientated. One theory is that weather changes are confusing and killing off the male worker bees. Bee mites and infections could also be a culprit. Perhaps the influences of pesticides are to blame as well.
It is not only honeybees which are diminishing – but also bumblebees and other species. Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees to follow the scent of flowers to their source, which in turn undermines the essential process of pollination. Considering that most bees have poor eyesight, scent is particularly important to them.
It also affects bumblebees
Whatever the cause, the effect can be devastating on many levels. Without bees there would be no fruit as pollination is needed. Pollination is the process of pollen being transferred from the flower’s anther to the stigma – the opening part of the flower (and where the seed grows). This process is vital for the reproduction of more plants. Bees are especially important for the pollination of plants whose stigma and anther reach maturity at different times. Bees are able to transport the pollen amongst flowers. Pollination of cotton, pears and peaches, avocados and cucumber (to name a few) is also carried out by insects, with honeybees being extremely effective at this.
Bees pollinate the plants which we get our cotton clothes from and plants which line rivers and streams, controlling erosion. Bees and other insects pollinate many plants around the world – many of which form forests, jungles and grasslands. These plants are the habitats for animals all over the world.
If cotton is not pollinated, it would be dire
The disturbing reality is that insects (such as bees) pollinate a third of everything humans eat – these include vegetables, fruits, seeds and forage for our livestock. This fertile touch of the honeybee is causing an increased concern by many, including companies who produce products such as cereals and ice cream. By being so dependent on this system of pollination we are ultimately relying on the honeybee to complete the majority of this work.
No more fruit. No more food….
Unless action is taken to stem the problems of domesticated honeybees and add to their population with wild bees, it is possible that vegetables and fruit that we currently take for granted may disappear from the food chain. The actual decrease is not well documented and so cannot be closely monitored and compared over the years passed. A good starting point to avoiding a worldwide disaster is to really understand the causes, and this can only be done through proper research. It seems important that we invest in exploring how and why the population of bees have been declining so rapidly. If we do not then it seems inevitable that the vital roles of bees such as the honeybee will be realized too late. Considering that we rely on so many different crops, the honeybee is ultimately just as important to us as the rain and sun which grow such foods – without pollination then it will not only be a decrease in bees which we will notice.
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