No individual is alien with the fact that bees are the reason why we get to taste sweet, delicious and healthy honey. This honey is not only restricted for use in our kitchens, but it has a wider application where it is being used in medicine manufacturing as well as in manufacturing beauty products. However, bees are more important than one may perceive them to be, let’s know how.
Types of bees
Not all bees are the same. There are over 20,000 known species of bee globally. Only 1 of these is the famous Honeybee. Most Honeybees are kept by beekeepers in colonies of managed hives. The rest of our bees are wild, including 25 bumblebee species and more than 220 types of solitary bee. Like Honeybees, the familiar Bumblebees live in social colonies – usually in holes in the ground or tree cavities. Solitary bees tend to nest on their own, as the name suggests. Each female builds and provisions her own nest with food. Solitary bees include Mining bees which nest in the ground, as well as Mason bees and Leafcutter bees that nest in holes in dead wood, banks and walls.
BEES: THE PERFECT POLLINATOR
Bees are not the world’s only pollinators. Flies, wasps, moths, beetles and even some birds, bats and lizards all pollinate, but they only visit flowers enough to feed themselves. Because they gather pollen to stock their nests, bees are generally the most effective pollinators since they visit many more flowers and carry more pollen between them. Some bee species are also specially developed to pollinate particular plants and without them those plants would be less well-pollinated.
Bees gather pollen to stock their nests as food for their young. They have special features to collect it – like branched hairs called ‘scopa’ or combs of bristles called pollen baskets on their legs. As bees visit plants seeking food, pollen catches on their bodies and passes between plants, fertilising them.
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. In combination they produce bigger, juicier and more evenly-shaped strawberries.
BEES PRODUCE MORE THAN JUST HONEY…!!
Honey is not the only product that is derived from bees. Bees produce a variety of products such as bee wax, bee venom, pollens, royal jelly, and propolis. Bee wax is used in the cosmetic industry and contains almost 300 natural compounds. Bee venom is used in healing various conditions and illnesses, but such treatment is only possible under medical supervision. Pollen is extremely rich in protein. It contains all the essential amino acids, various fatty acids, vitamins B, C, D, E and K, and pro-vitamin A.
Royal jelly is secreted by the glands of young worker bees. Nurse bees feed the jelly to the larvae, which are up to three days old, whereas queen bees live exclusively on it. It is this distinctive food that decides whether a worker or a queen bee will hatch from the larva. It alleviates conditions and inconveniences related to ageing, which, among other things, are connected to a deficient diet; it has proven to be an excellent dietary supplement particularly for the elderly. Propolis in particular is the beehive’s very special treasure, because it is a natural antibiotic. Bees collect resin from a variety of trees and shrubs and blend it with pollen pellets while feeding larvae. Over 360 substances have already been found in it. We can use it in the form of alcohol- or water-based solutions or mix it with honey or other drinks (yoghurt, sour milk, tea etc.). We know of various pharmaceutical preparations made with propolis, such as ointments, tablets, injections and solutions that can be used topically.
BEES AS INDICATORS OF A HEALTHY ENVIORNMENT
Some might state that bees are not important, because their role in pollination could be filled by other pollinators. However, this is not necessarily true, but in any event, the health and abundance of bees is a crucial indicator for the health of the wider environment as a whole. Thus, the factors affecting bees will often impact other pollinators, and have wider consequences for the environment generally.
Honey bees especially provide an opportunity to judge longer term environmental health, since they are one of the few insect species which produce colonies which are meant to survive for multiple years. They also have a group of people – namely beekeepers – looking out for, and observing their progress (albeit not for wild honey bee colonies).
In addition, the by-products of honey, wax and pollen can also be analysed easily for pollution, and importantly, these products can be scientifically studied over time (even within a single colony), with a certain number of scientific controls imposed.
BEES CAN SAVE HUMAN LIVES
Some of the practical ways in which bees may help communities in developing countries are somewhat more unusual. For example, bees are helping to save elephants and protect people in Africa, by reducing human-elephant conflict. Even more surprising is the fact that it has been found that bees can be trained to sniff out landmines and explosives! They may yet be saving lives in very practical ways!