Bees Are Important
We may take them as a joke or
feel disgust for them, but they are vital for stable, healthy food supplies.
Bees are adapted to pollinate, they help plants
grow, breed and produce food. They do that by transferring pollen between
flowering plants to keep the cycle of life turning. But sometimes that doesn´t
happen, because of a combination of stresses, from loss of their habitat and
food sources to pesticides and the effects of climate change. More than ever
before, we need to recognize the importance of bees to nature, the world and to
our lives.
Many bees have different characteristics that make
them suited to pollinate certain plants. Garden bumblebees are better at
pollinating the deep flowers of honeysuckle and foxgloves than most other
species because their longer tongue can reach deep inside them. Many farmers
rely on a diversity of bees to pollinate their produce. For example, commercial
apple growers benefit from the free pollination services of the Red mason bee.
This species can be 120 times more efficient at pollinating
apple blossoms than honeybees. There is evidence that natural pollination by
the right type of bee improves the quality of the crop - from its nutritional
value to its shelf life. For example, bumblebees and solitary bees feed from
different parts of strawberry flowers. These plants grow on sandy or chalky
open grassland, an important habitat for a variety of bees and wildflowers that
is under threat from changing land use.
Bees are important for more than honey, even some
plants grow to feed to livestock for meat production, such as clover and
alfalfa, depend at least partly on bee pollination. Loss of pollinators could
lead to lower availability of crops and wild plants that provide
essential micro-nutrients for human diets, impacting health and nutritional
security and risking increased numbers of people suffering from vitamin A, iron
and folate deficiency.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization identified encouraging pollinators particularly bees as one of the
best sustainable ways to boost food security and support sustainable farming.
In the UK alone, the services of bees and other pollinators are worth £691m a
year, in terms of the value of the crops they pollinate. A lot of money a year
to employ people to do the work of these pollinators, yet bees do it for free.
Bees are important to a healthy environment, Bees
are a fantastic symbol of nature. That they are in trouble is a sign that our
natural environment is not in the good shape it should be. By keeping the cycle
of life turning, bees boost the colour and beauty of our countryside. Some 80%
of European wildflowers require insect pollination.
So at the end,we can see that bees are very
important for our life.
By Alejandro Durán U, Step 9
