Despite being little, bees are incredibly vital to our world because of their unique relationship with plants.
Bees are highly hardworking, excellent builders, incredibly gregarious, and — most importantly — they provide a third of the food you consume.
But bee populations are declining globally. The effects on global food supplies, particularly those of fruits, nuts, and vegetables, worry experts.
Gardens with a variety of flowers and plants are a favorite among bees. Plant these seeds to produce lovely flowers that, thanks to their abundance of nectar and pollen, are ideal for bees.
Understanding bees is crucial because it not only enables us to support them but also serves as an amazing illustration of how our natural environment functions.
Table of Contents
Top 10 Reasons Why Bees are Important
Bees are amazing, for sure! Here are some justifications for why bees are crucial and advantageous to both people and the environment.
Although some of these reasons are well known, there may be some on this list that you had not previously considered.
1. Pollination
The best pollinators in the world are bees. Bees are the ideal pollinators as a result of their 100 million years of evolution.
Because of their long history with plants, bees are excellently suited to identify flowers and gather pollen; the length of a bee’s tongue is even adapted to the type of flower it feeds on.
Bees make it possible for plants to reproduce over great distances by efficiently transporting pollen from blossom to flower.
Bees contribute to the production of fruits, berries, nuts, and seeds, as well as leaf and root crops.
The elements of our nutrition that depend on bees (and other pollinators) for cross-pollination are likely the most intriguing.
We should take into account here that it’s not just delectable fruits that allow us to enjoy foods like strawberry ice cream, apple pie, blueberry muffins, and so forth, but also delectable veggies like peas and beans.
Additionally, studies have revealed a connection between pollination and human health, as bees not only pollinate food crops but also increase their nutrient content.
Bees also assist in ensuring that many different plant species’ seeds will germinate, allowing for the collection of some of the seeds for planting a crop the following year.
This is crucial for all crops, even leafy ones like some brassicas like kale.
2. The significance of bees in food webs
Bees also pollinate crops that are consumed by birds and other animals.
Berries, seeds, and some fruits and nuts that are pollinated by bees and other insects may be a source of food for birds and mammals.
It’s important to remember that pollination benefits some domesticated animals as well!
For instance, cows consume hay that has been pollinated by bees (leafcutter bee species are especially effective). Therefore, as you can see, bees are essential to the entire food chain!
3. Bees’ financial impact on the economy
Although it’s quite challenging, attempts have been made to estimate the contribution of bees to the food crop business.
$15.2 billion was projected to represent the worth of crops in 2009 that were solely dependent on insect pollination, with bees accounting for the majority of that value.
Bees are thought to contribute up to $40 billion USD annually, nevertheless. According to one study, the production of crops that depend on pollinators in the USA is worth more than $50 billion annually.
Personally, I believe that there are so many variables to take into account that it is difficult to calculate a number. Bees are significant, that much is certain.
Along with pollination, the beekeeping sector generates income for beekeepers and their families through the sale of items and services that consumers desire (such as honey, wax, and pollination services) as well as for the manufacturers of beekeeping equipment.
4. The role of bees in biodiversity
In addition to being crucial for food production, bees also significantly improve the countryside, gardens, and overall landscape quality.
Therefore, bees are good for the ecology as a whole. They ensure plant biodiversity and the aesthetic appeal of landscapes and gardens by pollinating wildflowers, shrubs, and trees.
5. Trees require bees!
Bees pollinate more than just flowers and food crops.
Many trees are pollinated by bees, although this fact is frequently overlooked (other insects).
Horse chestnuts, rowans, hawthorn, whitebeam, the stately native limes, pussy willow, and fruit trees including cherry, pear, plum, quince, and apple are just a few examples.
Of course, bees also gain from trees. Trees are the earth’s lungs and provide a habitat for a wide variety of creatures. They also aid in stabilizing soil structure and landscapes.
6. Bees save elephants and may even save the lives of humans!
There are a few less common ways that bees might actually benefit populations in underdeveloped nations.
For instance, by lowering violence between humans and elephants, bees in Africa are saving elephants and ensuring the safety of people.
Even more astonishing is the discovery that bees and wasps can be trained to identify explosives and landmines, which could help with bomb detection in areas of the world that are still sadly afflicted by this hazard.
Bees can be taught to recognize human sickness as well.
7. Bees assist small-scale farmers
Bees benefit people and communities, particularly in underdeveloped nations.
Through beekeeping, international nonprofits like Bees For Development assist communities in generating a sustainable income and pollinating food crops.
8. Bees are like “the canary in the coal mine” in that they provide insight into the state of the larger ecosystem.
Although they might help with the pollination of particular food crops, it is not necessarily true that other insects might fulfill the role of bees in pollination.
Studies have consistently demonstrated the importance of bee pollination to particular crops (such as apples) and the detrimental effects that a lack of bee pollination has on agricultural production, leading, for instance, to a decreased yield of fruits like watermelons.
In any case, environmental factors that influence bees frequently also affect other pollinators and have broader effects on the environment as a whole.
Since honey bees are one of the few insect species that create colonies designed to last for several years, they offer a unique opportunity to assess longer-term environmental health.
Additionally, they have a group of individuals, especially beekeepers, who are responsible for watching over them and tracking their development (albeit not for wild honey bee colonies).
Additionally, it is simple to examine the pollution-causing potential of honey, wax, and pollen byproducts. More crucially, these products may be continuously studied by scientists (even within a single colony).
9. Bees can teach us a lot.
Projects in science and engineering, such as the usage of hexagons in engineering, have been inspired by bees.
The study of bees, particularly honey bees, has resulted in enormous volumes of scientific research, making them perhaps the organism that has been researched the most after humans.
Bees have also sparked literary and philosophical concepts.
Bees are excellent because they can teach people a lot about cooperation and diligence, which is why they are frequently used in symbolism. Who knows what the bees will tell us in the future?
10. Bees assist in constructing habitats for other creatures.
Bees aid in the development of habitats for mammals, insects, and birds. Bees play a crucial role in food production through pollination, but they also provide a habitat for a wide range of species.
When we consider the wider picture, we can see that bees contribute to the creation of natural habitats where other creatures can dwell and obtain food by pollinating wildflowers.
Conclusion
A lot of individuals are helping bees, especially in their gardens. With pollinator margins along the edges of crop fields, an increasing number of farmers are also carefully addressing the issue of biodiversity.
In addition to these outstanding initiatives, we must reduce the use of agrochemicals. Due to their growing concern for soil fertility, some farmers are once more reaching this conclusion on their own.
As more people become aware of the situation of bees and take action to help them, this is the general tendency. I hope this inspires you as well!
FAQs
How do bees help humans?
The biodiversity on which we all rely for survival includes bees. They offer premium foods including honey, royal jelly, and pollen as well as other items like beeswax, propolis, and honey bee venom. Nuts, coffee, cocoa, tomatoes, apples, and almonds, to mention a few crops, won’t be grown without bees. Furthermore, without bees to offer them, the newly discovered Trusted Source therapeutic benefits of bee venom and other bee products could never be available. The cost of using wild bees to pollinate fruits and vegetables.
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A passion-driven environmentalist by heart. Lead content writer at EnvironmentGo.
I strive to educate the public about the environment and its problems.
It has always been about nature, we ought to protect not destroy.