According to experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), one third of the world’s food production depends on bees.
When animals and insects collect pollen from flowers and spread it, they allow plants, including many food crops, to reproduce. Birds, rodents, monkeys, and even people pollinate, but the most common pollinators are insects, and among them, bees.
In order to raise awareness about the relevance of pollinators, the challenges they face, and their role in sustainable progress, the United Nations (UN) designated May 20 as World Bee Day, and this year’s theme is “Inspired by nature to feed us all.”
DANGER
Bees are in danger due to various reasons, such as the use of pesticides. Some studies have shown that pesticides can affect bees’ ability to navigate, which can negatively impact their ability to find food.
There is also a loss of habitat, as human development often involves the elimination of wildflowers that bees need for food. Changes in climate could also be altering the synchronization of plant flowering, resulting in less food availability for bees.
However, there are things you can do to help bees:
1. Learn more about bees: By getting to know them better, you will be able to respect and take care of them better.
2. Buy local honey: Honey produced by nearby beekeepers retains the maximum vitamins and other properties, in addition to helping the beekeeper cover the costs of beekeeping.
3. Help protect bee swarms: Swarming is a natural process when bee colonies decide to reproduce. If a swarm appears, get in touch with authorities to contact a local beekeeper who can collect and take care of the swarm.
4. Consider becoming a beekeeper: You will be able to eat the honey from your own bees. There are organizations that can advise you and even lend you the first beehives.
5. Do not light campfires in the countryside: Hundreds of beehives are lost every year due to wildfires, and the environmental damage they cause is immense, as they end up destroying the lives of entire ecosystems that then take decades to recover.
6. Do not leave bottles, bags, or cans in parks or in the countryside: These objects pollute the environment and the relationship between it and bees is inverse, the more pollution, the fewer bees.
7. Help bees by giving them a home: An apiculture association can put you in touch with a beekeeper who may need a settlement nearby.
8. Provides nectar and pollen: Plant varieties from the mint family are easy to grow, a sweet treat for the human sense of smell, and bee magnets. Several herbs such as basil, thyme, lavender, lemon balm, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, and sage belong to the mint family.
THE KEYS
• Apiculture is the activity of breeding and caring for bees for the subsequent extraction of honey from their hives, royal jelly, propolis, beeswax, and pollen.
• The apiary is the place where beehives are concentrated in which bees live, and they are divided into three types of hierarchies.
• Queen bees have the sole function of laying eggs; worker bees are responsible for collecting nectar and pollen; drones are the ones who fertilize the queen bees, and once they fulfill their function, they are expelled from the colony.
• Worker bees produce honey, royal jelly, and wax throughout the year, as well as food for the hive. Once the bees finish the process, which takes about three weeks, beekeepers collect the honey and royal jelly in order to obtain other products.
By the way, according to the Mayo Clinic website, there is research on the use of honey to prevent or treat specific conditions such as coughs, cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, neurological diseases, and wounds.
Sources: UN, Eco Colmena, Mayo Clinic, and National Geographic.