Honeybees & Their Importance

Honeybees & Their Importance

Honeybees are extremely beneficial to our entire environment for their role in pollination. These bees help with the growth and reproduction of plants and each bee can pollinate more than 100 crops! It’s important to understand why these insects are important and how we can best protect them moving forward.

There are three types of honeybees: adult workers, drones, and the queen. The adult worker bees, who are all female, are all infertile. Their main role in the colony is to collect pollen and nectar. The worker bees do have barbed stingers and, while they aren’t typically aggressive, they will sting if they feel threatened. Drones are male bees and do not have stingers, nor do they collect nectar. Their primary role is to mate with the queen bee. Queen bees are slightly larger than worker bees. The queen bee plays a vital role in the bee colony, as she is the only bee who can produce more honeybees.

Honeybees are active pollinators and will produce honey. Since these insects are the only social insects, their colonies can survive for many years, with an individual colony containing anywhere between 20,000 to 80,000 bees. If the colony’s size gets too large for the available hive space or the queen begins to fail, the bees will start swarming. While these bees aren’t aggressive, they will attack when they feel like their colony is being threatened.

The production of honey by honeybees is extremely important to the environment. Since honey does not have an expiration date, it can be used and reused several times. Honey also has medical benefits, from healing burns to fighting some allergies. Honeybees, as we know, help pollinate crops, which in turn helps us produce and reproduce the plants and food we use to survive.

While bees have positive effects on our environment, some people can be a little wary of them on their property. Protecting these insects is crucial, and it’s recommended that the first and only treatment for these bees is removing and relocating them and their hives by local beekeepers. If you notice you have a honeybee colony on your property, reach out to a pest control company that can provide safe relocation for these insects.

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