Find out in the article what the role of bees is in nature.
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What is the role of bees in pollination of plants: how to explain?
Bees are highly organized insects. They are large workers, work for the good of a person. Beekeeping products - honey, propolis, wax, peg, have many beneficial substances. However, bees appreciate and love not only for making delicious and healthy products. The invaluable benefit of bees consists in their ability to pollinate the plants.
It is very easy to understand the importance of pollination by bees. After all, animals can find a pair and carry out a reproductive task, and plants cannot do this. Therefore, bees and some other insects are priority assistants in the process of pollination of fruit trees, agricultural crops, flowers.
Important: Pollination - the process of sexual reproduction of plants. It is characterized by the transfer of pollen from the stamens to the pestle.
The stamens is a male organ of plants, and the pestle is female. With successful fertilization, the seed is formed. It turns out an ovary. So we can enjoy fruits, berries, development and crop of agricultural crops depends on successful pollination. Without pollination and successful fertilization, it is impossible to get a good harvest.
Exist two types of pollination:
- Self -pollination when plants fertilize themselves;
- Cross pollination occurs when pollen is tolerated by insects.
Bees are engaged in cross -pollination. Cross pollination has a number of advantages over plant self -pollination. The most important advantage is that most plants cannot be self -sized. And then bees come to the rescue, these small insects quickly endure pollen from one flower to another.
There is a hypothesis that if the bees disappear, then after a few years a person will disappear. The absence of bees will lead to the disappearance of plants, fruits, berries, fruits. This will lead to the hunger of animals and humans.
Many scientists are concerned about the phenomenon of the destruction of bee colonies. This trend has been observed in many countries over the past decade. The causes of extinction of bees are the use of pesticides in agriculture, as well as the expansion of cities and the disappearance of wild honey plants. These factors affect the immunity of bee families.
Bees must be protected and taken care of them. Throughout its short life, the bee pollinates many plants, and people can get great benefits from this small worker.
Why and how do bees pollinate plants?
As already indicated above, the connection of the pollen of the stamens with the pestle leads to fertilization. But first, pollen should ripen in the anthers. When the pollen matures the boot bursts. The bee at this time sits on the flower. With her proboscis, she collects pollen and nectar. On her body there are many electrostatic villi, to which pollen sticks. This feature of the structure of the body determines the value of the bee in pollination.
When the bee collected pollen from one flower, it flies to another. Puffy stamens penetrate the pestle stigma, then it sprouts. A grain of pollen, penetrates the ovary. This is how the process of fertilization occurs, and good crops that are subsequent behind this process.
Many farmers agree with beekeepers on the placement of apiaries near their lands. Such cooperation is mutually beneficial. The farmer receives rich crops of plants and cultures, and the beekeeper - a rich harvest of honey.
Important: bees pollinate the plants involuntarily. Making nectar and pollen, they get their food.
The flight from one flower to another bees is carried out in search of food, from which the bees subsequently make honey. You can read about how bees make honey here. One bee per day can pollinate from 1,500 flowers. 60 bee families can pollinate 25 hectares of plants. Studies were conducted, during which scientists found that the yield of plants as a result of pollination by bees increases many times. For example, when pollinating plums, yield increases to 50%. And there are such plants, the existence of which without bees is impossible, for example, clover.
Other winged insects can pollinate plants. There are few of them: butterflies, bumblebees, beetles and even a wasp in a small amount. If we compare in the percentage of the “work” of bees and other insects, we get the following results:
- Bees pollinate to 90% of plants;
- The share of pollination of plants with other insects is 10%.
Important: the weather affects pollination. Years of bees on rainy days and cold weather ceases.
Bees collect and transfer pollen to warm, clear days. In this case, the weather should be calm. Most plants bloom in the spring. It often happens that after the onset of heat, frosts return or cooling occurs, it rains. Such weather is unfavorable for the release of bees, they hide in the hives. Therefore, often cooling during flowering is fraught with insignificant crops.
Video: How is the flower pollination with bees?
What flowers cannot be pollinated by bees?
Important: attracting bees on lands can be a real problem for the farmer. There are plants that bees practically do not pay attention to. Such plants include clover, as well as linen and alfalfa.
But people found ways to attract bees on the clover. To do this, use:
- Blood and yellow-colored shields near the places of the grover growth.
- The bees are fed with sugar syrup.
First, a feeder with sugar syrup is placed near the apiary. Then, when the bees run into, feeders with sugar syrup are placed near clover. At the same time, there is no need to place food in the hive, the bees will fly to the feeders to the clover.
The bees do not sit on the red clover, they do not see red. Therefore, you can use the sowing-prime in the form of a pink clover, which is a good honey plant. Two varieties are sown next to each other. Thus, bees visit the red clover.
In winter, some beekeepers let bees into greenhouses in order to pollinate crops growing there. But more often artificial pollination is used. Chemical drugs used to grow crops in greenhouses can cause great harm to the bee family.
Bees love the following species of plants:
- Fruit-berry trees: apple tree, plum, pear, raspberries, apricot, strawberries, strawberries, cherries.
- Vegetable, melons: watermelons, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins.
- Feed and oil cultures: buckwheat, rapeseed, sunflower, white mustard.
- Flowers, herbs: jasmine, lavender, acacia, fatselia, lemon balm, petunia, hyacinth, etc.
Important: if you want to attract bees to a section of bees, take care of the landing of favorable plants in your site.
The mechanism of attracting bees is as follows:
- Plants should have a strong aroma, bees feel it.
- The flowers should be colorful. Bigs love blue, white, yellow, orange flowers most of all. The bees do not see red flowers, they practically do not sit on them.
- Flowers with a simple structure have more chances for pollination. It is easier to get to the nectar bees. Bees are smart insects, they will not want to spend their time and effort on the extraction of nectar from flowers with a complex structure, if there are simple ones nearby.
- It is worth taking care of continuous flowering on the site. So bees will always have a source of food, and the gardener has good crops.
The biological role of bees in nature is very important. More than a third of the global crop of culture depends on the activities of bees. People must appreciate and protect bees with all their might.