Where Are All the Honey Bees Going?

There isn't another insect that plays such an important a role in the welfare of humans more than the honey bee. Many people would assume the main role of a honey bee is to make honey but in actuality they are known as the most economically valuable pollinators of agricultural crops worldwide especially in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) frequently state that bee pollination is involved in more than one-third of the U.S. diet and contributes to the production of a wide variety of crops including fruit, vegetable, tree nuts, some field and other specialty crops.

Honey bees serve as commercial pollinators in the United States and have contributed an estimated $24 billion and have a value of $15 billion annually. Much of the feed consumed by livestock is pollinated by honeybees. More than 100 agricultural crops in the United States are pollinated by bees. This means bees are important, if not essential, for the production of nearly $7 billion worth of agricultural crops produced annually in just the state of Georgia alone. Examples of bee pollinated crops include watermelons, cantaloupe, squash and tree fruit. Although some of these crops are pollinated by bee species other than honey bees, honey bees are the only ones that can be easily managed moved around and are known to exploit a wide variety of crops. As discussed above, honey bees are essential to our well being as one third of what we eat is pollinated honey bees such as almonds, apple, avocados, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon and many other crops. All rely on honey bees for pollination. It is commonly stated that gardeners know they are not going to do well if there aren't any honey bees flying about.

The largest managed pollination event in the world is in California almond orchards, where nearly half (about one million hives) of the United States honey bees are trucked to the almond orchards each spring. Maine's blueberry crop uses about 50,000 hives each year and New York's apple crops require an estimated 30,000 hives as well.

If the miracle of honey bees' pollination of the fruit and nuts we eat were not enough, it is the other gift they give us that has amazed humankind throughout the world. The gift is honey. Honey bees produce honey and beeswax, which are valued at $285 million in the U.S. annually. The average per capital consumption of honey is more than 1.2 pounds annually. Bees also produce pollen, royal jelly, bee venom and propolis (a wax-like resinous substance collected by honey bees from trees other botanical sources), which is playing an increasing role in many health foods and alternative medicine. Honey bees also pollinate up to 80% of agricultural gardens. Each honey bee transfers pollen from one plant to another as they search for nectar. This step fertilizes the plants and enables them to bear fruit.

Honey bees are very much a part of the modern American agricultural picture. It is estimated that there are $2.9 million colonies in the U.S. today, owned by beekeepers with five or more colonies. Over two million of these colonies are on the road each year to pollinate crops and to produce honey and beeswax. This represents a major change in U.S. agriculture since the first colonies of honey bees were rented for pollination of apples in New Jersey in 1909, and since the first migratory beekeeping for the purpose of honey production began in this country in the latter part of the 1800's. Each year, bees pollinate 95 crops worth an estimated $15 billion in the U.S. alone. Today we estimate the annual value of increased agricultural production attributable to honey bee pollination at $14.6 billion versus $9.3 in 1987. The value comes in the form of both increased yields and superior quality of the crop.

As stated above, pollination of crops is the most important role of the honey bees. Pollination is simple the movement of male pollen to the female part of the flower (stigma), the first step in successful seed and fruit production by the plant. There are two types of pollination called self-pollination and cross pollination. Self-pollination is when pollen is transferred from the anther to the stigma within a single plant. Cross-pollination is the transfer of pollen from one plant to the stigma of another