The sight of a honey bee tends to make most people panic and run away in an attempt to avoid being stung. To many, honey bees are just another annoying insect that loves nothing more than to spend the day scaring people as they buzz around them. These insects may not have a good reputation, but there is a lot that humans and flowers alike owe to honey bees. In fact, without honey bees, the world would be a much different place.
Of course, for those who aren’t familiar with the work that bees do for both humans and flowers in San Francisco, CA, it can be hard to understand how anyone could see them as helpful, rather than as just another pest that needs to be exterminated.
How do honey bees benefit flowers?
Flowers and bees need each other. Bees need flowers for the pollen and nectar, which allows them to eat and make honey. What flowers get out of this relationship is that they are pollinated. In order for the flowers to reproduce and seeds to be made, pollen needs to be transported from flower to flower. Bees help to transport this pollen, and this ultimately allows other flowers to grow.
Bees don’t just help with the growth of flowers—they also lend a hand with agricultural crops and provide us with delicious honey to eat. They are obviously not solely responsible for every crop grown, because farmers put in plenty of work on a daily basis, but they do a lot to ensure foods like apples, broccoli, celery and more are pollinated. If there is more produce in the grocery store, there will be more food on your table!
What are other ways in which honey bees are beneficial to humans and flowers?
In addition to helping humans and flowers through pollination, monitoring honey bees is one of the many ways we can detect that something is not right with the environment. In many cases, you will notice a change in the number of bees when something is amiss. If there is a problem that needs to be addressed—for example, better control of diseases, increase of the bees’ main source of food or decreased use of pesticides—the bee population will no longer be affected.
However, with any decline in the population of bees, fewer flowers and agricultural crops will be pollinated. Since flowers need to be pollinated in order to grow, there is a chance they will die out. This can obviously affect how much produce is available at your local grocer, how many flowers are available at your local flower shops and the amount of honey you’ll find on the shelf.
Most people don’t know how important honey bees are, not just to flowers, but to humans as well. Rather than seek to kill honey bees, people should remember how much these insects have done and will continue to do when you let them live. They may buzz around you from time to time, but they are worth much more alive.
Are you interested in learning more about flowers in San Francisco, CA? Come visit The Delicate Daisy – House of Flowers today to speak to one of our experts!