Honey Bee Decline Essay

In the past decade, Bee keepers in North America have reported to seen an alarming decline in honey bees. In some places such as Utah, honey bee populations have plummetted by as much as 70 percent. In conjunction with North America, the decline in the honey bee population has been observed in Europe as well which is the place these insects originated from. The number of hives around the planet has been at it’s lowest point in fifty years. This problem in which majority of working bees disappear has now been termed as the “colony collapse disorder” by biologists. Scientists have reported that there are multiple factors in play as to why there is such a rapid decline of honey bees in recent years. These factors include the increase in use of

Since Bees have stiff hair and little pockets in their legs, this allows them to collect pollen every time they land on a flower, and thus polinate many platns. So what is polination? In simple terms, it is the transfer of pollen from the male part of the plant, the anther, to the female part, the stigma. As bees transfer polin and it comes in contact with the stigma of a flower, a seed, nut, or fruit is then formed. While many plants can polinate for themselves, many also require insects such as bees to do it for them so that they can sucesfully grow seeds and food. Not only that, but bumble bees are very sucessful in polinating many crops because most of their life is spend collecting pollen. Individual bees usually focus on one species of flower at a time. This means that the pollen from one flower can be transferred to a flower of the same species rather than spreading many different pollens to different plants which are not even being pollinated. This causes muche higher quality of polination. Many plants require this type of cross polination so that they can get an even distribution of viable pollem from others of its same species in order to produce viable seeds. To produce foods and seeds, these plants must be pollinated by