The Importance of Honey Bees

Why do you think honey bees are

important?

Question: Do you know what all these foods have

in common?

Answer: They all need

honey bees in order to be produced!

Bees Do More Than Make Honey…

Bees are responsible for pollinating over 90 types of flowering crops in the U.S.

About 1/3 of the food we eat, requires bees to pollinate the flowers of their plant in order for the plant to produce food.

Before fruits and vegetables grow,

a plant first has to flower…

In order for the flower to turn into fruit,

the flower has to get pollen from another flower… this is where bees

come into play.

Flowers that don’t make fruit still need pollen from another flower to make seeds, which eventually

make new plants.

So the bees help the plants produce plants and more

seeds…

But the plants also help the bees, because the bees bring pollen back to

their hives where they turn it into food (honey!)

Some plants don’t make flowers. For

example, pine trees just make

pine cones, which are kind

of like giant seeds. They rely on the

wind to pollinate

instead of bees.

Other types of pollinators are butterflies, bats,

humming birds, wind, and water.

Bees make hives in

nature, but people keep

bees in order to

gather their honey, or

use them to pollinate

crops.

So to summarize, bees help us survive, because the help

produce a lot of the food we eat!

Read Scholastic News Article About

CCD

Bees Feel the Sting

Videos About Colony Collapse

Disorder https

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgc5w-xyQa0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRGrI4AQG70