How Bees Pollinate The Food We Eat

One of our goals here at D-TEK Live Bee Removal is to remove bees that have invaded your property in an environmentally safe manner and deliver them to local bee keepers.

We don’t simply spray them down and kill them because as I noted in this post, bees have a profound impact on the environment.

It’s a well-known fact that bees are important pollinators of the food we eat. Which is why a few years ago colony collapse disorder was all the rage and people were all but calling it the doom of civilization as we know it (a little overly dramatic in my opinion but bees are important nonetheless).

But what is pollination ? And how does it happen ?

This post will answer that for you.

What is pollination ? 

Pollination is simply the transfer of pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part of the flower.

If you did not know that flowers have male and female parts , now you know !

The male part of the flower where pollen is transferred from is known as the anther and the female part the pollen gets transmitted to is called the stigma of the same flower or another of the same species.

Pollination can happen a few ways :

• Insects
• Wind
• Water
• Birds
• Bigger animals

For our purposes, we will only focus on how insects, especially bees pollinate a plant.

How Bees Pollinate The Food We Eat ?

Worker bees never set out to pollinate a plant. They simply fly over to flowers to get food for themselves and their colony.

In the process however, they pick up flower pollen on their wings and feet. The flapping on their wings and rapid movements in between flowers then allows this pollen to then be transferred to the stigma of the flower where fertilization takes place.

The pollen moves down a tube below the stigma called the style. Once the pollen reaches the bottom of the style, it interacts with the flower ovary where fertilization takes place.

Eventually, this fertilization leads to the development of the part of the plant we typically consider the seed or fruit – the part we humans typically harvest for our food.

If There Are Other Modes of Pollination Why Are Bees So Important?

Great point. I am not in the camp that cries “wolf” each and every time the issue of colony collapse disorder comes up. I however know enough to appreciate the very essential fact that pollinators like bees contribute to 35% of all plant pollination.

That is a huge percentage considering that plants can be pollinated by other agents including wind, water and bigger animals etc.

This is why as a company, DTEK Like Bee Removal chooses to remove and deliver the live bees back into environments where they can perform the functions they are designed for and most importantly so that natural course by which food is produced is not diminished.

[note align=”center” width=”600″]Found a bee-hive on your property ? If you live in the Greater San Diego area, call Dave at 760-224-3040. We removes the bees, the hive & all the honey and will perform any repairs that need to be done as well. [/note]