Honey Bees are Important to our World

Most of us don't really realize that the beekeeping industry is responsible for one-third of the food we eat. 

As far as a dollar value the bee pollination to U.S. agriculture is more than $14 billion annually,according to a Cornell University study.

No human activity or ingenuity could ever replace the work of bees and yet it is largely taken for granted.

The value of honey, bee pollen, royal jelly, propolis, and beeswax pales in comparison to the value of fruits, vegetables, seeds, oils and fibres whose yields are optimized by pollination bees.

The crops which require pollination by bees are from nuts to vegetables and as diverse as alfalfa, apple,cantaloupe, cranberry, pumpkin, and sunflower.

Bees also have an impact on the natural vegetation by cross-pollinating which leads to better fructification and to seed formation by flowers that produce fruits or seeds.

With pollination of their crops so important, farmers can't depend on feral honey bees that happen to nest near crop fields.

Farmers will contract migratory beekeepers, who move millions of bee hives to fields each year just as crops flower. Pollinating California's 420,000 acres of almond trees alone takes between 900,000 and 1 million honey bee colonies.

The importance of bees goes far beyond agriculture. They also pollinate more than 16 percent of the flowering plant species, ensuring that we'll have blooms in our gardens.

Of course, there is also the honey. More than $200 million worth of raw honey is produced in the United States every year.

Pretty cool for an insect that is not even native to the New World. But then again, most of our crops and many of our garden plants aren't natives either.

These evolved in areas where honey bees are native, and both crops and insects were brought here to become essential parts of our agricultural system.

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