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Honeybees and Pollination

Honeybees are often praised for producing honey, but their most important contribution to human life has little to do with the sweet substance in their hives. As they move from flower to flower collecting nectar, bees carry pollen on their bodies and transfer it between plants. This process, known as pollination, allows many plants to produce seeds and fruit. Scientists estimate that roughly one in three mouthfuls of food eaten worldwide depends, at least in part, on animal pollination, and honeybees are responsible for a large share of this work.

Not every crop needs a bee to reproduce. Wheat and rice, for example, are pollinated by the wind and would grow perfectly well without a single insect visiting them. Other crops, however, are far more dependent on bees. Almonds are a striking case: almost the entire commercial almond crop relies on honeybees, and growers in some regions rent millions of hives each spring simply to have enough bees present when the trees flower. Apples, blueberries, and many other fruits also produce smaller and fewer yields when bee visits decline, even though they can technically self-pollinate to a limited extent.

In recent decades, beekeepers in North America and Europe have reported unusually high losses of honeybee colonies, a phenomenon sometimes called colony collapse disorder. Researchers have not identified a single cause; instead, they point to a combination of factors, including exposure to certain pesticides, the spread of parasitic mites, and the loss of wildflower habitat where bees once fed throughout the year. Because so much of the global food supply depends on healthy bee populations, agricultural scientists are now testing solutions such as planting flower strips along the edges of farmland and restricting the use of pesticides that are known to be harmful to bees during flowering season. Whether these measures will be enough to reverse colony losses remains an open question among researchers.