Bees and Their Importance to Human Survival - Essay Example

Full Bees and their Importance to Human Survival (Com 111 – Essay #2) 03 March (estimated word count = 1,048) Introduction There are approximately 200,000 different kinds of pollinators in the environment, of which about 20,000 (10%) are the various species of bees. When pollination is done by these bees, it is termed as entomophily, while pollination accomplished by vertebrates such as birds, bats, and even humans, is called as zoophily. Besides the bees, other common insects which are also pollinators include wasps, flies, beetles, ants, moths, and butterflies. However, bees are the most prevalent or common because these can be breed (raised and propagated in artificial hives) and perform the pollination function much more efficiently compared to other insects, animals, or so-called carriers of pollen or termed as vectors. Bees are very important to human survival, because without them, pollination cannot take place and many products in agriculture, such as fruits and vegetables, will not be available if not for the bees. However, it is also alarming that bees themselves are under serious environmental threats. It is estimated some $40 billion to $50 billion worth of agricultural products are due to the pollination activities of these bees (Abrol 762). Bees are very crucial for survival of the human species. Discussion Besides pollination, bees are also well known for their honey. I remember when I was still a young kid, my mom used to make me eat honey at breakfast. I can still very vividly recall its sweet taste in my mouth; among the sugars available from Mother Nature, it is honey that has most health (anti-bacterial) beneficial effects. People today are more health conscious as compared to earlier generations; honey as a natural sweetener is much better to the artificial sweeteners in the supermarkets today (Chepulis 37); whenever I see honey, I remember bees. Since ancient times, honey has been considered to have medicinal properties, but it is only now, with the use of modern science, that its chemical composition has been analyzed to know what makes honey a powerful tonic, and even as an aphrodisiac. Science has confirmed the firm belief of the people in antiquity that honey contains many of the elements essential for good health, among them anti-oxidants amino acids, vitamins, and minerals (Sharma 14). One can eat plenty of honey without getting the ailments associated with sugars or sweets such as diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and vascular diseases. I was walking home one day when I heard a persistent buzzing sound. At first, I did not know immediately what it was; I had originally thought I just imagined hearing the sound, a buzzing sound in my ears, because there is something wrong with my hearing. Only later on did I realize a big bee was buzzing and flitting from flower to flower in our home garden. This garden has been planted with a variety of flowers, and the bee made great use of the spring. It flew among the red flowers, sipping the nectar of each bud and seemed tremendously happy. What a sight it was! A bee is very graceful when flying; its wings beat at 190-250 times per second! (Micucci 28). This frequency can be compared with the wing beats of a butterfly (4-20 times per second, while the fly beats its wings at 1,000 times a second). A honey bee actually has two pairs of wings, and its wings are so small compared to its body weight, it is defying both the laws of gravity and aerodynamics because of so much energy from honey! Honey bees are one of the most useful insects in the world, and it is difficult to have a good harvest without them pollinating all the flowers of the fruits and vegetables. The apple is an example, without bees pollinating their blossoms, no apple can be produced. Further, a lot of people may not know it, but bees also make beeswax used for making candles (during earlier times when electricity was not yet harnessed to produce lighting); candles made from beeswax have a higher melting point, so these do not wilt easily compared to other candles. One can handle a bee only if that person is considered an expert on bees; otherwise, it sure is very painful to feel a bee sting. It takes a professional beekeeper to handle properly a bee hive without getting stung or hurt. I once handled a bumblebee while still a child, and the sensation is tingling, with its sharp feet but with the sting removed surgically (without killing the bee itself). I could feel its wing beats, producing a steady wind, like a small electric fan! In some cases, a bee sting can be fatal due to allergic reactions, depending on the person. It is quite difficult exactly to describe the smell of a bee, but all I can say is that a bee smells like the beehive it came from. The odor or scent is a combination of nectar (honey), beeswax, the collection of pollens in the hive, of wood, of pheromones (secreted chemical hormones), and propolis (a resinous mixture) made of tree sap and other botanical sources. A bee smells through its feet, because this is where its chemo-receptors are located (in humans, the chemo-receptors are inside the nose, so people smell using their noses) while a bee uses its feet to look for the nectar among the flowers and tree blossoms, and in the process achieve its useful purpose of pollination. This explains why honeybees are very good at finding nectar; a honey bee (species name is Apis mellifera) has 170 odor receptors, compared to only 62 in the fruit fly or the 79 receptors in mosquitoes (Kloeppel 1); bees need a good sense of smell to find food, distinguish between flowers, communicate with other bees, or detect dangers. Conclusion Bees play an important role in agriculture because their action of pollination results in the fertilization of fruits, vegetables, and trees that help in food production for humans. It is noted that pollination has declined due to massive loss of bee populations from a phenomenon termed as “colony collapse disorder” or CCD, first detected back in 2007; climate change has been ruled out as a possible cause but pesticides are suspected (Zimmer A20). Many kinds of agricultural activities, such as fruit and vegetable production, are heavily dependent on bees. Works Cited Abrol, D. P. Pollination Biology. New York, NY, USA: Springer Books, 2012. Print. Chepulis, Lynne. Healing Honey: A Natural Remedy for Better Health and Wellness. Boca Raton, FL, USA: Universal Publishers Incorporated, 2008. Print. Kloeppel, James E. “Honey bee chemo-receptors found for smell and taste.” Archives, News Bureau of Illinois. 25 Oct. 2006. Web. 02 Mar. 2013. . Micucci, Charles. The Life and Times of the Honeybee. Boston, MA, USA: Houghton- Mifflin Company, 1997. Print. Sharma, Rajeev. Improve Your Health with Honey. New Delhi, India: Diamond Pocket Books, 2005. Print. Zimmer, Carl. “Two studies point to Common Pesticide as a Culprit in Declining Bee Colonies.” New York Times. 29 Mar. 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. . Read More