The Amazing World of Honey Bees Like most animals, honey bees require proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, fats, vitamins, and water for normal growth and development. Honey contains all of these important things, but honey is made just from the nectar of plants and bee added enzymes. Not only are honey bees known for making honey, but they are also pollinators and without them we would lose a lot of necessary things like plants. Honey bees are extremely important for different reasons; however, they are faced with many issues that conflict with their contribution to the economy and the environment. The life inside a beehive is very interesting because of the many characteristics the honey bee acquires and the life cycles of the honey bee.
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Chemical communication is connected to pheromones. Pheromones are “chemical scents that animals produce to trigger a behavioral response from the other members of the same species” (Blackiston 25). Honey bee pheromones are basically the “glue” that secures the colony and certain pheromones stimulate different behaviors. For example, certain queen pheromones let the entire colony know that the queen is present, force the worker bees to work, and act as sex attractants. Other pheromones control the drone population, help guide worker bees back to the hive, alarm bees of aggression within the hive, and help worker bees recognize the needs of other bees. Without these pheromones the beehive would fall apart and not be able to work successfully. Bees also communicate through different dance moves. The two different dances are the round dance and the waggle dance. “The round dance communicates that the food source is near” and it is basically when the bee flies around the hive multiple times (Blackiston 26). On the other hand, if a food source is farther away from the beehive, worker bees conduct the waggle …show more content…
This means that they deposit pollen onto flowering plants to allow fertilization, which in turn creates more plants. For humans, bees are essential because without plants, people would not have food, clothes, medicine, or oxygen to breathe. Unfortunately, humans would not be able to survive without these things. According to the Office of the Press Secretary in the White House, “honey bees enable the production of at least 90 commercially grown crops in North America” (Fact Sheet 1). This means that the ninety crops produced in North America would not be available for food if bees were slacking off on pollinating. Other statistics provide the information that “ bees pollinate about one-sixth of the world’s flowering plant species and some 400 of its agricultural plants” (The Benefit 1). Obviously, there are a lot of plants that require pollination by bees, but without bees that would not be possible. There are also many plants that rely on just honey bees to pollinate them; for example: almonds. The California almond industry is successful because of the 1.4 million beehives it receives annually. In addition, poor pollinated plants usually do not produce enough fruits, which increase the prices of food items. Economically, bees are important because the more people spend, the better the economy. If not a lot of people are buying a particular food item because the price is too high, then
Chemical communication is connected to pheromones. Pheromones are “chemical scents that animals produce to trigger a behavioral response from the other members of the same species” (Blackiston 25). Honey bee pheromones are basically the “glue” that secures the colony and certain pheromones stimulate different behaviors. For example, certain queen pheromones let the entire colony know that the queen is present, force the worker bees to work, and act as sex attractants. Other pheromones control the drone population, help guide worker bees back to the hive, alarm bees of aggression within the hive, and help worker bees recognize the needs of other bees. Without these pheromones the beehive would fall apart and not be able to work successfully. Bees also communicate through different dance moves. The two different dances are the round dance and the waggle dance. “The round dance communicates that the food source is near” and it is basically when the bee flies around the hive multiple times (Blackiston 26). On the other hand, if a food source is farther away from the beehive, worker bees conduct the waggle …show more content…
This means that they deposit pollen onto flowering plants to allow fertilization, which in turn creates more plants. For humans, bees are essential because without plants, people would not have food, clothes, medicine, or oxygen to breathe. Unfortunately, humans would not be able to survive without these things. According to the Office of the Press Secretary in the White House, “honey bees enable the production of at least 90 commercially grown crops in North America” (Fact Sheet 1). This means that the ninety crops produced in North America would not be available for food if bees were slacking off on pollinating. Other statistics provide the information that “ bees pollinate about one-sixth of the world’s flowering plant species and some 400 of its agricultural plants” (The Benefit 1). Obviously, there are a lot of plants that require pollination by bees, but without bees that would not be possible. There are also many plants that rely on just honey bees to pollinate them; for example: almonds. The California almond industry is successful because of the 1.4 million beehives it receives annually. In addition, poor pollinated plants usually do not produce enough fruits, which increase the prices of food items. Economically, bees are important because the more people spend, the better the economy. If not a lot of people are buying a particular food item because the price is too high, then