World Bee Day

Besides Apis Mellifera , there are other 11 known honeybees species and hundreds of stingless bees. In many cases, these bees have spiritual and cultural significance, medicinal purposes or are used as environmental indicators. Pollinators such as bees, birds and bats, pollinate 87 leading food crops worldwide. Around 10 percent of the total economic value of agricultural output for human food is dependent on insect pollination. About three quarters of the food we eat depend, at least in part, on pollinators. Almost 90 percent of the world’s flowering wild plants (approximately 308 000 species) depend, to varying degrees, on pollinators for their reproduction. Over 200 000 species of animals are pollinators; the vast majority of them are wild and include more than 20 000 species of bees. Pollination enables the production of an abundance of diverse and nutritious fruits, vegetables, and nut species. Protecting bees and other pollinators is one of the pillars of the transformative chang...

  Develop and implement national strategies , policies and action plans to protect and enhance pollinator populations and institute risk assessment and mitigation measures. Promote sustainable practices – such as crop diversification , integrated pest management , agroforestry – which enable bees and pollinators to thrive and thereby continue providing essential ecosystem services.

 Now is the time to think about nature and take action to protect pollinators and to Understand their habitats and needs for survival.

  Globalisation is taking place in beekeeping , as in every other sector. Beekeeping with European races of honeybees , plus all associated technology, is being spread around the world. The consequences of competition between introduced (exotic) honeybees and indigenous honeybee species and races are unknown.

 Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the anther (the male part of the flower) to the stigma (the female part of the flower). Some plants can pollinate themselves: in this case, the pollen passes from the anther to the stigma inside the same flower, and this is called self-pollination . Other plants need pollen to be transferred between different flowers or different individuals of the plant. This is cross-pollination. Many plants can be pollinated both ways. Plants can be pollinated by wind or animals. Some plants have only one method for pollination , others use a combination. The knowledge ofpollination by animal pollination (Zoophily) in the tropics is still little known, and much work and research have to be done in this area. Some general rules can be used to detect whether a plant is pollinated by bees, flies, beetles, wasps, butterflies, moths, thrips, birds, bats, marsupials, slugs or rodents. Flowers pollinated by bees most often bloom in daytime, they can have d...

 If we look at the many colourful and different looking flowers, we should not forget that they have developed as an adaptation for the bees and other pollinators, and not to please humans! Bees and most flowering plants have developed a complex interdependence during millions of years. An estimated 80 percent of flowering plants are entomophilous i.e. depending more or less on insect pollination to be able to reproduce, and it is estimated that half of the pollinators of tropical plants are bees. The efficiency of honeybees is due to their great numbers, their physique and their behaviour of foraging on only one plant species at one time. The bees have to find their food in flowers. The food can be nectar or pollen. Nectar is produced to attract the bees. Pollen is also attracting the bees, but it has another function too: it is produced to ensure the next generation of plants. Bee pollinated flowers have evolved in such a way that a visiting bee has to brush against the flower’s ...