But the role bees play in nature is likely part of a greater story. Bees have been producing honey from flowering plants for the last 10 to 20 million years.
As major contributors to floral growth, bees provide nourishing habitats for animals like birds and insects and beautify the Earth. Many of the floral landscapes that we know and love in nature are made possible because of honey bee pollination.
Worldwide, there are around 25,000 different types of bee species (around 4,000 in the U.S.). There are over 4,000 genera of bees, which are subdivided into just nine families of bees. The Apidae family is the most well known family, with familiar members such as the honeybee, carpenter bee, and bumblebee. All of these species are pollinators of our agricultural world. All bees have stiff hairs and pockets on their legs, allowing them to collect more pollen and be more efficient transporters of it between plants. Bumblebees appear to …show more content…
Some plants rely on animals to assist with their pollination process, while others can pollinate themselves or rely on the wind to do it for them. Bees also tend to focus their energies on one species of plant at a time. By visiting the same flowers of a particular species in one outing, much higher quality pollination occurs, since all plants of one species are getting an even distribution of vital pollen from others of its same species. Pollination is essentially plant reproduction. Without help from animal pollinators, at least one third of our staples would no longer be