Positive And Negative Effects Of The Honey Bee On The Environment

When we think of bees, we think of pesky, harmful insects. What we don’t know is everything they do for not just us, but the world. Bees influence our food supply greatly. Without bees, the would be absolutely no honey whatsoever and the amount of pollen could increase greatly without their presence. You might be thinking, “What does pollen have to do with anything?” but actually the amount of pollen not only influences our allergies, but also the plants. It is definitely possible plants we eat could become over pollinated and there would go another one of our food sources

Many plants rely heavily on bees as their main pollinator to reproduce. The main fear is that even though many flowers also rely on mammals and other insects to assist in the pollination process, bees are the biggest and most vital source of this life cycle. As the bees disappear the reproduction process of many plants does not happen as efficiently thus less plants are produced, this

Furthermore bees specifically are particularly efficient with it being estimated that they are the sole pollinators for 50% of the approximate 80% of flowering plants which rely on insects for pollination (Bradbear, 2009). Their efficiency is further illustrated by the fact that a single colony containing 25,000 forager bees is able to pollinate 250 million flowers per day (Bradbear, 2009). As a result of this it can be seen that bees are hugely important as pollinators with many species of flower being completely dependent on them. Furthermore, the importance of bees extends beyond ecological diversity; certain types of bees are hugely important economically. In addition to pollinating a large variety of fruit and vegetables, bees produce Honey; together this results in them having an estimated value of service of £200m a year in the UK (National Audit Office (NAO), 2009). Overall it can be seen that bees are of significant importance that any decrease in population should be treated with concern, as a result of this a large quantity of research has been conducted into identifying possible

Since the late 1990s, beekeepers around the world have observed the mysterious and sudden disappearance of bees, and report unusually high rates of decline in honeybee colonies. Bees do more than just make honey! Bee transfer pollen and seeds from one flower to another, fertilizing the plant so it can grow and produce food. Cross-pollination helps at least 30 percent of the world's crops and 90% affects our food. The sweet fruits humans eat such as, strawberries, mangoes, grapes, apples, and bananas would not be the same taste wise as they are now. We simply couldn’t live in the same world if it weren’t for the bees.

What you may not know is that honeybees play a huge roll in America’s agriculture, whether it is pollinating alfalfa hay to feed your horse or pollinating that apple you eat every morning for breakfast. Honeybees pollinate about one-third of crops species in the U.S. (Vanishing Bees, 2008). Bees pollinate a lot more than you would think a few more examples are almonds, avocadoes, cucumbers and peanuts.

Honeybees occur naturally throughout Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, however, they are not as common in tropical and subtropical areas, such as South America. In the late fifties, Dr. Warwick Kerr bred the two species of naturally occurring honeybees, per request of Brazilian government,

The European honey bee (or western honey bee, Apis Mellifera) is a species of bee that naturally occurs in Europe, but has been introduced by humans to a variety of foreign ecosystems, including Australia and New Zealand. It is of ecological importance because of the effect that this introduced species has on the biodiversity of native wildlife, in particular native bees, hollow-nesting native birds and mammals, honeyeater birds and native flora.

Bees pollinating crops produce every third mouthful of food we eat. Bees contribute to thirty- five Percent of global food production, 87 of the leading 115 food crops are dependent on animal pollinators, including bees. (The United States White House, 2014). Without bees pollinating plants, there would not be very many fruits or vegetables to eat, Bees transfer pollen between the male and female parts, allowing plants to grow seeds and fruit. In the last decade scientist and beekeepers have observed remarkable decline of bees, in the US alone 30% of the national bee population has disappeared and nearly a third of all bee colonies in the U.S. have

These species include bees, such as the western honey bee, along with flies, beetles, moths, and butterflies. Pollination, as far as honey bees are concerned, is a process where honey bees legs get coated in pollen which they transfer from flower to flower to fertilize the plant. Plants rely on pollinators to grow and produce offspring. Without pollination, many plants would die off and would not be around the next growing season. Pollination is the sole reason the U.S. has as many fruits, vegetables, and nuts that it does. The western honey bee is one of the many important pollinators that have become a huge part of North American agriculture, but they might not be necessary.

Bees are important pollinators of many plants in the ecosystem (2). Recently, the decline in the number of bees in North America and Europe has shifted the research focus of many ecologists towards pesticide use (2). The impacts of pesticides on bees and other pollinators can have a major influence on honey production and biodiversity.

Honey bees are a non-native species in both North and South America. European honey bees (EHB) were first introduced as a relatively mild species. The EHB, however, is not well suited for tropical climates. After comparing the honey yields of EHB in the Americas to the yields of honey bees in Africa, Brazilian

Bees have existed for about 100 million years, and they have played an important role in the pollination of plants. A long time ago, pollination was crucial to the balance of the food chain. Without it there would have been no food for the herbivores and they would have become extinct; so no food for the meat eaters. They have been doing their job for millions of years, but recently scientists have observed problems within the colonies which could have negative effects with in our ecosystem.

Saéz, Sabatino, and Aizen, wrote “"Interactive Effects of Large- and Small-Scale Sources of Feral Honey-Bees for Sunflower in the Argentine Pampas” article to explain what is a pollinator and why should we care about the ultimate pollinator in the world: the honey bee. A pollinator is an animal that pollinates crops in a natural or man-made habitat, most flowering plant life is dependent on their ability to attract these pollinators. Without pollinators, there are many flowering species of plants that would not be able to populate at all. Honey bees are the best pollinator in the natural wild, due to their hive mechanics and the body of a honey bee itself. The rest of the article is about an experiment that test the difference between small

Bees are profound contributers to the ecosystem, but their population size is decreasing tremendously. Without them, key factors to everyday life will be negatively affected. The honey bees pollinates flowers. Pollination is when pollen is transferred to a flower’s reproductive organs and enables it to fertilize. When fruits and vegetables are growing, they start of as small flowers on the plant, eventually becoming whatever food they are. Pollination is how the flowers are able to grow into the fruit or vegetable. The natural, and best way, a plant gets pollinated is through bees.

Honey bees, feared by the misinformed and admired by the intelligent, are dying. The interest in bees from many environmentalists is not for a sudden cause, as this issue is not new to the world. Honey bees as a population have been in decline for years but have yet to reach the endangered species list anywhere in the United States except for Hawaii. Many people kill bees that buzz around joyfully, simply because they are afraid of being stung by them; however, a vast majority of bees do not sting and the others do not care. This unfortunate commonality is not even one of the top causes of the worldwide epidemic of honey bees. Although bees are jokingly idolized on the internet in pictures and videos as a result of a popular children’s movie, their population decline is in fact quite serious. Honey bees and other pollinators like birds and insects ensure the pollination of flowering plants and crops all around the globe. Not only do honey bees pollinate plants that produce the foods that humans eat, but they also pollinate trees that produce clean oxygen for Earth. Without honey bees, the world as we know it could soon end, due to carbon dioxide pollution and lack of farmable foods. The population of honeybees and other important pollinator-bee species is dwindling due to a dilemma known to scientists as colony collapse disorder (CCD) because of the use of bee-killing pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, the decrease of flower meadows in the world, and the general increase