How Do Bees Help Food Production?
In my first post "Let's Save the Honey Bees" dated April 11th, I talked about the importance of saving the honey bees. I spoke about how much food production they are responsible for, why their colonies are failing, and how we as the world community can help. I also have started a post series on how my family is helping to save the honey bees in our area; "Save the Bees in Our Area." Today, I realized I did not cover how they do it. How they are responsible for 80% of our food production. How do they bees help yield that much food?
According to the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health; “Bee pollination is an essential ecosystem service for the successful production of many crops and the demand for pollination services is increasing. The risk of insufficient crop pollination may be increasing as populations of both managed and wild pollinators in North America decline.”(Petersen, Reiners, Nault,2013)
The process is called pollination. I thought I knew this process but after researching it I realized I did not. I thought the bee flew into a flower, got pollen on his cute little feet and flew away. The pollen that was on his feet would be transferred to other plants, making new plants. It is a little more complicated than that.
When the bee lands on the flower to collect nectar for food, for their colonies, they pick up pollen on their feet. Some of the pollen comes from the stamens of the flower and when the bee goes to the next flower it is rub off onto the stigma of the next flower. The stamens are the male reproductive organ of the flower and the stigma is the female. When they meet, by way of the honey bee or other pollinators, there are new plants that are fertilized. Fruit carrying seeds are developed. It is also the only way certain plants produce fruit, one being the pumpkin plant. This is how I started on this path.
When the pumpkin plant grows and blossoms are present, they must pollinate to make fruit. They have separate male and female flowers and for pumpkins (fruit) to be produced, they must meet. They must be pollinated to produce fruit. If you do not have bees in your yard then you will need to pollinate yourself. This is a process of moving pollen from one plant is simple enough. Identify the male and female flowers, take the pollen via a q-tip or paint brush, and move it over to the female organ, done. However, if you had a field of over a 1000 pumpkin plants, this could be a very daunting task. Plus, pumpkins are not the only fruit or vegetable plant that requires this process, hence why bees are responsible for 80% of our food. Every fruit or vegetable plant that produces a flower must be pollinated to produce fruit.
This is why it is important to protect all pollinators and help in the restoration of the colonies. Once I understood the actual process and the importance of pollinators, it only resolved my quest in helping as much as I can.
Thank you for reading :) Please take the a few moments while at the store and look for flowers that have pollen and think about taking it home. Place it outside and know that you are helping. You may not be making fruit in a field, but you are feeding a colony of bees. This will help the bees survive the winter and continue to grow. Also, when you are buying pesticides to combat other pest, goggle a non chemical way to handle those pests. This will protect them even further, plus the water and other animals. If we all take one step, that one step can become a mile.
Reference:
All Photo's - CCO
Canada Agriculture and Museum. (2015). Pollination. Retrieved from, https://bees.techno-science.ca/english/bees/pollination/default.php.
Grant, Amy. (April 4, 2018). Pollination Of Pumpkin Plants: How To Hand Pollinate Pumpkins. Garden Know How. Retrieved from, https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/pumpkin/hand-pollinate-pumpkins.htm.
Petersen, Jessica D., Reiners, Stephen, Nault, Brian A. (July 24, 2013). Pollination Services Provided by Bees in Pumpkin Fields Supplemented with Either Apis mellifera or Bombus impatiens or Not Supplemented. US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722171/.