reportage
Bee grateful ! “
If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.” Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee
B
ees are very important for humans: they are the heart of our survival as a species. Bees are found everywhere, except Antarctica. There are about 20,000 distinct bee species in the world, and more than 2,000 in Europe alone. We often see these insects as a threat, but bees are responsible for a surprising amount of the food we consume. Bees are divided into two types based on their nesting behavior: solitary bees and social bees. As their name suggests, social bees live together in colonies within a hive, following a hierarchal structure consisting of a queen, workers, and drones (male bees). They are known to make honey and wax. The most common social bees are honey bees and bumblebees. Social bees make up about 10 percent of the entire bee population. Most bees, approximately 90 percent, are solitary and live in nests tunneled into the soil. Since they do not belong to a colony and do not have a queen or hive to protect, solitary bees are nonaggressive. Whether wild or domesticated, all bees are important pollinators. The reasons for importance of bees are
the many.
Bees are mostly known for their honeyproducing talents. Honey is the most widespread bee product worldwide. In 2016, there were about 90.5 million beehives in the world, each beehive producing
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approximately 20 kilograms of honey per year. The production of one kilogram of honey requires one million flowers and 50,000 bee flights. One honey bee can visit between 50 and 1,000 flowers in one trip. If we do the maths, a honey bee colony comprising 25,000 forager bees, each one making 10 trips a day, can pollinate up to 250 million flowers a day. That’s a mind-boggling amount of flowers! Alongside honey, these small black-andyellow-striped insects also produce pollen, propolis, beeswax, and bee venom. These products have been used for therapeutic purposes since ancient times in various countries, such as Egypt and Greece. For example, propolis, also known as the “bee glue”, is a resinous-like substance produced by bees collected from plants, that is used to protect and maintain the structural integrity of the hive. It is a powerful natural antibiotic used to treat a wide variety of diseases and conditions, including laryngitis and psoriasis. Other byproducts we regularly use, such as healthcare products, candles, and drugs, also contain bee products. Bees contribute to one-third of the food we eat. As pollinators, these small flying insects play a significant role in every aspect of the entire ecosystem and food chain through their pollination action. Pollination is a very important part of the life cycle of
