Unbeknownst to the most of us, The Honeybees or Anthophila has a huge impact and plays a crucial role in both our community and economy.
It might be hard to grasp for many, but most of our edible food and even common household things we use everyday needs some sort of help from our friendly honeybee. Yes, you name it and bees might have a part of it. Anywhere from manufacturers of organic and inorganic food, cleaning lines, cosmetics industry, etc.
Most -if not all flavors, scent, color shades, texture and ingredients are all based on bee byproducts.
Remember that bees play a major part in pollination. Pollination is the process of production for flowering plants and so produces fruits among many other things.
Bear in mind that the fewer bees exist means less food, less products, less employment, less income. That's pretty much equivalent to less of a life worth living!
Here are some facts about bees.
- Bees produce honey to feed their young, they keep and save some for winter.
A huge chunk of produced honey from a man-made beehive are collected by beekeepers for manufacturing.
- Bees aid in pollination by transferring pollen, it allows plants to grow seeds in flowering plants. Et voila! Fruits and vegetables.
- People have known bees as not just honey makers but people chasers too. It happens when bees are excited and becomes aggressive.
That is why beekeepers decided to use smoke to calm bees especially when they're about to go out to do their task.
- Honey bees can be found in hives and that's where the entire colonies live.
- Bees need honey. Ever wonder why people take it from their hives? For the very reason that they can produce honey 2 to 3 times more than what they need.
We have to save and appreciate bees for us to continue enjoying their tasty honey!
- Colonial management wise, people vote country's politician whilst bees, should the queen dies, choose a young female larva. Bees feed it with what they call a royal jelly and expects that newly hatched insect to turn into a fertile queen.
- Bees are such flyers. They just not fly like butterflies and mosquito.
Bees amazingly fly fast at the estimated speed of 25km per hour and their wings work 200 times per second!
- The incredible relationship between bees and plants called Symbiosis.
When the bees carry the pollen to their hive, some pollen dropped along their way cause Cross pollination. Double whammy! :)
- If you would to notice, some bees die after stinging a person. The main reason is that the sting that was left on the person's skin was bee's stingers. The pin that is hooked on their behind is ripped from their abdomen then they sting which causes their death
PRODUCTION
It is actually in their nature to grow their numbers exponentially. Insects, specifically bees have a very different style and process of reproduction.
Bee's process of reproduction happens every 10 days for each cycle.
The queen enters a brood and lays eggs to the capped cell hatching small mites. As to how human infant finds it way out of his mother's womb and uterus.
Young bees have enough strength as well to eat the wax that protected them during their development to successfully be released from the cell to then on join fellow bees in the hive.
More honey, more money. That means more bees are needed preferably.
One can actually identify the queen from the rest of the pack. Workers from drones however, is not as easier.
These small creatures are divided into 3 types. Queen, workers, and drones.
Queen
The Beyoncé or Queen bee is as royal as a human queen. She runs the colony, guide bee's behavior and lay eggs for the sake of bee's future generation.
Workers
For humans, males are the main workers and providers. Female for bees, however, is the food keeper and is in charge of food storing as well as to clean and protect the hive. Since they sound very active, you may conclude that next time you see bees flying around in the open, those are female bees.
Drones
While female bees are all busy out and about, what does the male bees' up to? They're busy getting laid they mate with the queen bee. The only time they are being kicked out is during the winter for the sake of the hive's survival during the cold season.
DESTRUCTION
There are 2 most known reasons for a beehive to collapse.
The growing population of bees per hive
Insecticides/ pesticides issue.
The first one is not as troublesome as the latter. Whenever the beehive is about to collapse, the bees just go out and builds a new hive somewhere else. Like a married human couple that would buy/build a new house for their growing family.
On the other hand, insecticides including Neonicotinoids. From the root word Nicotine, harms bees and other insect's nervous system which eventually leads to sudden death.
To make this part even sadder, neonicotinoid not only affects insects. Such chemicals are used 95% of the time as as insecticides for major food crops, grains, fruits and vegetables.
Unhealthy chemicals on foods we consider "delectable", "healthy" and "tasty".
Now, how scary does that sound?
The worst part is neonicotinoid leads bees to paralysis, convulsion and even small doses of it cause fatal effects. Those poor poor bees.
Help save our bees, help save our future.
We need to take care of our surroundings- (IN GENERAL) not just to preserve and reserve our nature's beauty but to also ensure our own existence and survival.
This has been a pleasure to write and I certainly learned a lot myself, let me know your thoughts. Feel free to share your insights in the comment section below. If there would be any misinformation or any correction you'd like to make I'd be happy to make the edit. Thank you for reading.
And yeah. Any sincere comment gets an upvote. ;)
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