Bee
Powerhouse Pollinators
Bees are the most important pollinators because they pollinate more types of plants than any other group of animals.
Living on nectar and pollen provided by flowers, female bees also collect pollen to feed their larvae. Special mouth parts, body hairs and other physical features help bees efficiently collect pollen.
There are many kinds of bees with different lifestyles. Most bees are solitary but some are highly social and live in communities. Fortunately for people, some bees allow their beehives (communities) to be mobile. Farmers can transport beehives to pollinate orchards, such as apple or almond, resulting in a good crop of fruit.
Bees see blue, yellow, purple and other colors in the ultraviolet spectrum, but they cannot see red. Through time, flowers evolved colors, shapes and markings that would attract bees. Lupine and lavender are good examples of blue flowers bees like to visit. Some flowers, such as salvia plants, have a convenient landing pad for bees.
Often bee flowers have nectar guides, markings that help bees quickly find the flowers’ centers where the nectar is located. In some flowers, these markings are visible to humans; the foxglove for example. However, sometimes nectar guides are presented only in a low ultraviolet range, a range we humans don’t see.
For the past 80 million years, bees and flowers have become diverse together; it is estimated that one-third of our daily diet depends on bee pollination.
Most of us are familiar with European honeybees but there about 1,600 different species of native bees in California alone, 4,000 species nationwide and more than 20,000 worldwide.
Native bee sizes range from about the size of a large marble to a small grain of rice. Not just yellow and black, bees come in a myriad of colors, including sparkling green. Native bees often excavate tunnels in the ground or in the wood of trees; some are solitary while others are social.
Not all bees build hives and produce honey, but they still pollinate like crazy—which is very good for us mammals who eat the fruits of their efforts.
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