Bees often get a bad reputation and people do not like them due to their ability to sting those that they see as a threat. However, there is far more to bee issues than that. Through various types of pollinating, bees keep plants and crops from dying. Without pollination, plant life would die.
As stated in “Why Bees Matter”, “Bees play a major role in the pollination of plants and crops and are extremely important commercially for farming practices worldwide. It is estimated that about one-third of global food production requires animal pollination and that 80–90 percent of this role is carried out by honeybees” (p.1).
As such, honey bee control can be a bad thing. Moreover, non-pollinating bees also contribute heavily to crops as well, which is something that people can tend to forget. Bees are currently dying, and one of the main sources of plant life is in jeopardy. If you are looking for Save the Bees information, there is plenty of information online about what you can to do help.
“Why Bees Matter”. Retrieved from https://www.fao.org/3/i9527en/i9527en.pdf
From bulk honey to bee pollen, there are many uses that we have for products that bees create. Though many of use consume honey, often bulk honey, on a relatively regular basis – putting it in our teas, using it as a spread, even using it as a hair care product or a skin care product, many of us don’t quite understand the remarkable journey it takes a bee to make the bulk honey we so love. For instance, did you know that honey bees are able to fly as fast as fifteen miles per hour? And that the typical honey bee produces less than one teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime? In fact, in order to create one pound of honey (bulk honey, as it will often be called), a single honey bee would need to fly a distance of around ninety thousand miles, or not once but three full revolutions around the entire world.
And as much as we love bulk honey products such as raw organic honey and even honey stix, a popular children’s treat that people of all ages buy and love, bees do more for us than just make honey. Actually, bees pollinate around fifteen million dollars worth of crops every year in the United States alone, giving us access to many of the fruits and vegetables that we have become accustomed to. Without bees there to pollinate them, it is unlikely that they would survive very long without significant human intervention. This means that bees are responsible for the continued success of as many as thirty percent of all of our crops. They have an even bigger hand in the success of plant growth in untouched nature, pollinating up to ninety percent of all wild flowers and plants existing out of human control.
There has been considerable and justified concern over the decline of bees in the United States (and, as a matter of fact, around the entire world – we aren’t the only country that has felt the loss of bees). Fortunately, however, people are stepping in to help to rectify and remedy the problem. For instance, statistics show that the number of human owned and managed bee colonies is the highest that it has ever been before, particularly in the United States, and that there are nearly three million bee colonies spread out across the country that are tracked and followed by the USDA. This shows a considerable increase in the conscientiousness of people surrounding bees, and could lead to future prosperity in the markets surrounding bee pollination, such as honey (of course) and the future of our crops and agricultural systems. And things are looking up – in 2013 alone, North Dakota produced around thirty three billion pounds of honey alone, leading the way in honey production in the United States.
There are many different bee products that people love all throughout the United States. As discussed previously in this article, bulk honey is particularly common and popular as it has a sweet, mild flavor as well as many practical uses, from beauty treatments to, of course, human consumption. But bulk honey is not the only product we gather from bees. Take organic beeswax, for instance. Organic beeswax can be incorporated into a number of products commonly sold throughout the United States, such as soaps or even candles. Organic beeswax is also a common ingredient in lip treatments, which are particularly popular in the winter months, when people are more likely to have dry, cracked, and peeling lips. Some people even use bulk honey products to treat ailments such as sunburn, though you should always consult a doctor before deciding on a medical treatment.
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