NO BEES- NO PLANTS- NO ANIMALS- NO MAN

Albert Einstein once famously declared that “If the bees were to disappear off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man”..

This assertion implies that humanity owes his existence, to a significant extent, to the existence of honeybees on the globe.

Bees play a very important role of aiding pollination of some flowering plants. Pollination is essential for all seed and fruit formation. In some crops, it is the seed that is harvested for food. In other crops, it is the fruit that is consumed which develops from the seed. Cereals like rice, wheat and maize which are staples for the majority of the world population, are examples of seed crops while Tomatoes, citrus and pawpaw are examples of fruits developing from seed.

Plants require pollen to be transferred from the male parts of the flower to female parts on the same plant or on an other plant of the same species which may be some distance away. Plants depend on external pollinators to achieve this, among them insects, birds and animals. Bees are identified as very efficient pollinators because they have hairy bodies to which pollen grains easily adhere as the move about inside the flowers and also because bees usually visit flowers of a single plant species on each foraging trip.

Pollination is not only responsible for plant procreation but in fact has a direct bearing on crop yield which in effect influences your plant and ultimately your farm productivity. Some crops are completely dependent on insect pollination and will otherwise not set seed. In other words, if insects do not visit such plants, then they will not produce. Examples are melons, sun flower runner beans and almonds. Crops like cowpeas, cashew, sesame, maize and Mango may not be entirely dependent on insect pollination but will have their yields substantially increased when bees are involved.

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In our part of the world, the importance of pollination is under appreciated. In the developed economies, the importance of effective pollination is well understood by the farmers and beekeepers earn substantial incomes from offering bee pollination services to farmers from their honey bee colonies.

The gloomy face to the pollination story is that bee populations globally are declining due to several factors, among them, bee diseases and disorders, loss of habitats and insecticides and other harmful chemicals. It is in everybody’s interest to help conserve this insect and help maintain strong populations. We can help by being prudent in our usage of insecticides and other toxic chemicals. For instance, avoid spraying insecticides on plants when their flowers are open. Going the organic farming way where use of synthetic chemicals in production is done away with, is excellent for the environment.

We can also help by avoiding and discouraging deforestation. This as well includes allowing vegetation of flowering plants to grow on waste land, even deliberate planting of flowering plants for bee pasture. But perhaps the best way to help is to be a beekeeper. Beekeepers are environmental conservationist including everything related to the environment.

In closing, we put our opening statement in other words. “MORE BEES – MORE CROP PRODUCTIVITY – MORE HONEY – MORE MONEY!”

Enjoy your beekeeping and your reading favourite journal of agriculture, aquaculture and of course apiculture information, the Agricoop news.. Happy beekeeping.

This information is brought to you in the community service of Al – Apis Concepts Ltd.

For your questions and clarifications from this feature, contact the author on 0967 419 551/0954 186 973. Email: apisconcepts@gmail.com. For all your beekeeping requirements contact Al-Apis Concepts Ltd. Phone: +260 966 474757

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