Honeybees Research Paper

The honey bee is vital to an estimated $117 billion annual production of crops through pollination within the United States more than a half of the food that humans consume has a correlation with the bee either directly or indirectly. The USDA reports the following food products would be immediately damaged if no bees were available to pollinate:

A juicy apple. Pumpkin pie. Crisp almonds. Tangy oranges and grapefruit. None of these foods would survive without the hard work of honeybees. Unfortunately, in the last two years, United States beekeepers reported a loss of over 44% of honeybee colonies. Similarly, Europe has experienced a 25% loss and the United Kingdom has experienced a 45% loss. These numbers are staggering. What is causing this sharp decrease in the honey bee population? What are the long term impacts of a declining honey bee population? These questions must be explored because, like Albert Camus’ absurd hero, Sisyphus, and J. Howard Miller’s iconic hero, Rosie the Riveter, honeybees are vigilant in their tiring, though inspired, efforts toward a particular goal—in this

Bees are vital to farmers and ranchers because they’re necessary to keep their crops reproducing.

As little as they may be, bees are essential in the production of well over half of the world’s crops. For example, environmental scientist Jessica Tucker states in “How Bees Benefit Other Living Things” that bees are responsible for pollinating over 90% of humans’ flowering produce. That can be approximated to about one third of everything that we consume! Furthermore, the estimated value of just the total honey crop alone in 2013 was over $300 million, according to Tucker. The total value of everything produced by the labor of bees can be approximated at about $15 billion.

Eating an apple or smelling flowers for many people around the world is a normal occasion. Walking through the woods, seeing trees and fruits, of all kinds is something people do not think much about. There are future causes that could disturb the regular thought about nature for people all around the world. Plants and animals could become scarce and earth could be changed forever. This possible worldwide problem could be caused by the decreasing amount of bees. Bees live all across the world, some maintained by beekeepers and some wild are wild bees. They live and work together and each type of bee has its own job to keep the well being in a hive. On average, there are roughly 40,000 to 60,000 honeybees in a single hive (Web). Naturally a

Honey Bees feed the nation in a lot of ways.. and not in the way you may think Honey Bees play a massive role in our daily intake of necessary foods such a fruits and vegetables, with the

Did you know that without the honey bee, people around the entire world would not be able to eat the food that their body needs? According to an article posted on the Yale website, “One of every three bites of food eaten worldwide depends on pollinators, especially bees, for a successful harvest” (Grossman). Without the honey bee, many farmers would not be able to harvest enough produce. This would have a negative setback on the agriculture industry that would not only affect farmers but would also affect grocery stores and the general public. Without bees, the world would be entirely different.

The issue of protecting the colonies of honeybees is important to people because of the benefit the bees have for the earth and majority of animals living on it, including humans. A single bee colony can pollinate over 300 million flowers a day(Save the Bees); and in the past decade over 40% of bee colonies have suffered from colony collapse disorder(List of Foods); a dramatic reduction that will continue and become more apparent unless something starts being done about it. Education and action into the rise of the decline of bees is important as honey bees are responsible for the pollination of hundreds of flowers, many of which produce the fruits and vegetables we eat to survive. The advertisement can be shown in magazines, newspapers, or

Imagine a world where 35% of all the crops we have today are nonexistent (usda). What you are imagining is a world without pollinators, a vast majority (80%) of which are honey bees. Not only do bees help pollinate a large amount of the foods we humans consume, but they also produce one of the greatest treats on the planet, honey. This honey not only satisfies our sweet tooth, but also brings in a lot of revenue. In 2013 alone, North Dakota produced 33,120,000 pounds of honey, which converts to $67,565,000 (nass). Bees also create many jobs; there are about 212,000 beekeepers in the United States, however most of the beekeepers consider it a hobby or part time job (govinfo.library). Pollinators play an important role in the ecosystem. They

All around the world, grocery stores, super markets (redundant), restaurants are on the road to smaller menus. Coffee, chocolate, apples and any other pollinated species are approaching their demise with the population of bees dropping like flies (Dockrill, 2016). Bee pollination has always been essential to a person’s way of living, from agriculture to putting food on the dinner plate (Hagopian, 2016). The under appreciated aid from invertebrate pollinators has been decreasing in amount due to their declining population since 2006 (Hagopian, 2016). Studies show that in the United States, one out of three mouthfuls of food is due to honeybee pollination (Shutterstock,2016). One third of commercial bees are leaving their hive and the world

Honey bees perform many task such as pollination and honey making. “Honey bees are a crucial part of our food chain. As they gather nectar from flowers to make sweet honey, these bees also play an important role in pollination, helping some plants produce fruit. But large numbers of honeybees are disappearing every year.” Honey bees pollinate flowers, while they do so they also gather nectar from the flowers/tree, they will later use this nectar to make sweet all natural honey. Honey bees help America in many ways, one way is may helping to grow crops. “Honey bee pollination helps grow almost one-third of all our food!” Without honey bees it would be difficult to really have a thriving garden or orchard, because without pollination the trees will not produce as quickly or as full. When handling honey bees you should wear proper equipment to ensure safety, and to help prevent serious stings. “Beekeepers wear special clothing to protect themselves from stinging honey bees.” Beekeepers wear special suits that prevent the stinger from breaking the cloth and making it to the skin. The suits come with gloves and a mask that has a aluminium face protector on it. “The pheromones of the honey bee are mixtures of chemical substances released by individual bees into the hive or environment that cause changes in the physiology and behaviour of other bees.” When bees sting a victim they let off pheromones that tell the other bees to come out and sting the same victim. When handling bees it is critical to wear a suit, without one you can be severely hurt and even killed. Honeybees struggle some years more than others due to harmful insects and pesticides sprayed by local farmers. For example, “Mites suck the blood from the bees and they can eventually kill the bees, they are members of the tick family.” Mites are small bugs that attach themselves to the bee and sucks the bees blood. Considering honey bees are small insects, the mite can kill the bee after so long of being attached. Pesticides are also a big problem for honey bees, pesticides infect the bee and can kill an entire hive. “Pesticides are used to kill off unwanted vegetation but the pesticides are also killing the bees.” When people spray to

During the past decade the presence of bee diseases, droughts and other variable weather conditions has reduced the supply of bees worldwide. In the United States for example, the past few years have seen bush-fires, droughts, the killer mite (Varroa destructor) and the Colony Collapse Disorder wreck havoc with U.S. honey crops by destroying nearly two-thirds of their colonies. This has lead to a market opportunity for other countries to sell their honey to the U.S., which happens to be the largest consumer (and 3rd largest importer) of honey worldwide.

For once in history, the introduction of a foreign species has had paramount importance throughout their evolution for many terrestrial ecosystems. Apis Mellifera also commonly known as the Western Honey bee, is a vital component to global biodiversity. The honey bee provides ecosystem services of considerable ecological significance for the reproduction of plants and for the pollination of many economically important crops. Although the place of origin of Apis Mellifera is unclear, North America was introduced to the Western Honey bee around 1622 by European colonists (Weber, E. 2012). Amongst the eight species in the genus Apis, Apis Mellifera is the most widely valued honey bee in the United States(citation). Apis Mellifera live in nests, called a hive, and typically house 40,00 bees, which are divided into three different types of adult bees: Queen, Worker, Drone(Winston, M. L., 1987). Majority of the bees living in the beehive are Worker bees that provide majority of the fundamental processes needed to sustain the beehive. Honey bees consume processed nectar (honey) and pollen (bee bread) which are both found in Angiosperms (flowering plants). Nectar, which bees convert to honey serves as a primary source of carbohydrates (Winston, M. L., 1987). This provides honey bees energy for flight and product for colony maintenance. Honey bees will die within a few days if they do not have a surplus abundance of honey (Winston, M. L., 1987). Pollen is

There are several different species of insect pollinators, but the bees in general make up sixty-two percent of them. Honeybees make up thirty-nine percent of that number, and the other twenty-three is composed of several different species of bees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one-third of the homo-sapiens diet is insect pollinated and honeybees are accountable for eighty percent of the pollination of that one-third. The population of the honeybees in the United States has been noticeably declining from the late 1990 's, so the threat to the majority of the world food supply is slowly increasing as our pollinators population decreases.

A warm cherry pie, a handpicked red apple, a fresh cucumber, a big slice of juicy watermelon, a bowl of salty cashews, or a cup of coffee in the early morning are just a few of things Americans love and they have our six – legged friends the honeybees to thank for it. If honeybees continue to perish we can say goodbye to these things and several more (Sarich, 2013). Honeybees are vital for many crops across the world. Bees assist in pollinating crops that are worth $200+ billion every year. As honeybees continue to perish as alarming rates many believe we do not have the means to meet the pollination demands of the current U.S. crops (Walsh, 2015). We are not only faced with the problem of honeybees dying, but also the agriculture economy that relies on pollinating.