Busy Bees

To visit all 50 states, spreading pollen and info of the importance of bees everywhere.

Give a cheer for the bees! They are vital to our food supply and are the reason flowers bloom. Without bees, life would be much different, if it existed at all.

It is estimated that one third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees, especially the domesticated Western honey bee. Contract pollination has overtaken the role of honey production for beekeepers in many countries. Monoculture and pollinator decline (of many bee species) have increasingly caused honey bee keepers to become migratory so that bees can be concentrated in seasonally-varying high-demand areas of pollination.

Bees play an important role in pollinating flowering plants, and are the major pollinator in ecosystems that contain flowering plants. Bees either focus on gathering nectar or on gathering pollen depending on demand, especially in social species. Bees gathering nectar may accomplish pollination, but bees that are deliberately gathering pollen are more efficient pollinators.

Recently, many such migratory beekeepers have experienced substantial losses, prompting the announcement of investigation into the phenomenon, dubbed "Colony Collapse Disorder," amidst great concern over the nature and extent of the losses. Many other species of bees such as mason bees are increasingly cultured and used to meet the agricultural pollination need. Most native pollinators are solitary bees, which often survive in refuge in wild areas away from agricultural spraying, but may still be poisoned in massive spray programs for mosquitoes, gypsy moths, or other insect pests.

To learn more, do a wikipedia.org search for "List of crop plants pollinated by bees" and "Colony Collapse Disorder". We might just have a disaster on our hands.

Whatever you do, Bee kind to you're buzzing friends!

Countries Visited:

1. USA

States Visited:

1. California
2. Tennessee
3. North Carolina
4. South Carolina
5. Wisconsin
6. Minnesota
7. Washington
8. Nevada
9. Hawaii
10. Texas

Where to next?