Bill Maher on bees

[Guest guest]

Maher did an excellent editorial on bees.

 

I want to point something out for list members who aren't familiar

with bees and agriculture. Bees are ideally suited as pollinators.

As they go from flower to flower to gather necter, their

rough " coats " are brushing up against pollen which collects on their

coats. At the same time they're collecting pollen from one plant,

they're dispositing pollen collected from another flower.

 

A few plants are wind pollinated - pollen is carried from plant to

plant on the wind - but this is very iffy. It's not just a matter of

there may not be wind when the plants are ready to be pollinated but

also that the pollen may not reach other flowers or enough of the

other flowers.

 

As for doing it by hand, you couldn't hire enough people. Not to

mention the extra cost that would add to the price of fruits and

veggies. Not to mention how many flowers would be overlooked.

Overlooking is not a problem for bees that are determined to visit

every flower to get necter.

 

I used to have relatives in the mountains who had almost self-

sufficient farms. In addition to raising various crops, chickens,

ducks, cows for milk and meat, and hogs, and having fruit and nut

trees, they also raised bees. Having bees also gave the flower-

lovers in the family a good excuse to plant plenty of different

flowers in addition to food crops. Sometimes they even planted

flowers next to the food crops. I can still remember the taste of

that honey their bees produced. Nothing I've gotten commercially

quite comes up to it.