The honey bee (Apis mellifera) plays a vital role in pollination. Approximately one third of all the food Americans eat is directly or indirectly derived from honey bee pollination.
All honeybees are social and cooperative insects. A hive's inhabitants are generally divided into three types: the Queen (there is only one in each hive, and she lays the eggs), Drones (male bees), and Workers (the ones you are most likely to see, females who forage for food).
The central feature of the bee hive is the honeycomb. This marvel of insect engineering consists of flat vertical panels of six-sided cells made of beeswax. Also, did you know honey bees cannot see the color red? That doesn’t mean things that are red are invisible, they just cannot tell that it is red, kind of like being colorblind.
The honey bee population is in decline, some of the treats to their population are: pests, parasites, and of course pesticides. Also, they are facing an even greater risk: Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD is not very well understood, but it is where worker bees disappear from the colony. Since 2006, North American beekeepers have seen an annual 30-90% loss in their colonies.
There are 25,000 species of bees, but some common ones here in North America besides the honey bee are: Bumble Bees, Carpenter Bees, Mason Bees, and Sweat Bees. Some of these bees also help pollination.
How can you help?
One of the easiest ways to help rejuvenate the honeybee population is to respect honeybees. Don’t destroy a nuisance hive, there are people available (on craigslist and the internet) to remove and relocate the bees. Learning to preserve beehives and embrace bees’ roles in our ecosystem can be challenging, but the bees have a job to do and threatening their quality of life will consequentially threaten everyone’s. There are also proactive ways to encourage the regrowth of honeybee colonies. Plant bee-attracting flowers, sponsor honeybee research, or even become a beekeeper. Join a local beekeepers' association to become better informed about the care and keeping of honeybees and other steps you can take to stimulate colony growth and combat CCD. If you have a garden, you can attract other types of bees like mason bees by providing a special house that has tubes for them to lay eggs in (easily found online).