Bees are almost as old as man. What am I saying? Bees existed far back, about thousands of years ago. Since man discovered bees, their potential, what they have to offer to him and the environment, man has made bees a close animal. I learned in school that earthworms are farmers friends, I have also discovered that bees are the second friends too. I won't tell you the importance of bees in a straightforward manner, let's make a twist of it. Now I am going to let everyone know the importance of bees to man and the environment by narrating the story my lecturer told us in school in our first class on Ecology and Environmental Studies.
He started by saying, "Bees are one of the most important insects of history. There was a society where their main occupation was beekeeping. This community often enjoyed good farm yield because the fees which they reared in large numbers pollinated the farm crops. The community occupants didn't know this function of the bee, they thought the only importance was the honey and the hive. An incident took place in this community, during the hot season, the bees were affected by the heat from the sun and often got aggressive. During this period the community members suffered bee attacks and most of them had to be hospitalized. To solve this issue, the community occupants had to kill some of the bees to reduce the attacking power of the bees. The outcome of their action wasn't a nice one as they experienced a very low agricultural yield that season, why? Because the pollinators were gone, the plant flowers could not get pollinated and most of the plants ended up not bearing fruits."
This narration of our lecturer's little explanation of the importance of the bees as an ecological biotic factor has said everything I needed to say on the importance of bees. They pollinate our crops.
Bees are very persistent creatures and have a lot to give to this planet Earth and its occupants, us.
Beekeeping is a very nice and paying agricultural initiative. This aspect of agriculture is called Apiculture, the art of rearing bees for income and benefits of its products. To a bee farmer, bees have several advantages ranging from income to other products obtained from it which can serve as food for the farmer. Bees are attracted by colorful and scented plants.
To an ordinary farmer such as me, I must say I need bees more than I need seeds for planting. The picture below shows how we decorated the entrance to our farm with flowers to attract pollinators such as these bees to our farm.
Another agricultural strategy taken to ensure the presence of bees on the farm is to practice mixed cropping. There are several advantages of mixed cropping.
Some of them are the presence of pollinators, pest control, harvesting of a variety of crops and better soil nutrient management. One of the reasons we practiced this mixed cropping is to ensure the presence of pollinators. The colorful plants will surely attract pollinators to visit the uncolored ones.
Most times I often try to copy the bees because they possess rare and priceless qualities of hard work and division of labor. They are one of the most organized insects. They are called social insects because of their organized lifestyle. I used to imagine that if bees were allowed to build their world, I am sure humans would have sacrificed to pay the price to visit such a world. The bees organize and group themselves in carrying out daily tasks. They have the queen, the soldiers, and the workers. These different castes have their respective duties and can never switch roles. The bees are only dangerous if they sense one as an intruder and they need to protect their territory, their hard work, their hive, eggs and queen.
The bees are important to every human. Without them, there would be no food as plants would not yield. Without food, what is man? They are really important and they must be cared for and protected. One of the ways of caring for and protecting the bees is by practicing Apiculture. Farmers need bees just like earthworms. I often call bees, farmers' flying earthworms. The earthworms do the underground job while bees do the aerial job of plant growth and yield.
Farmers need to understand the importance of bees, the obtainable products of bee rearing and the importance of mixed cropping. I hope I have done justice to all these points I mentioned above and I have created an impact on my readers and every farmer's life.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your day to the fullest.
The first image is mine designed via Kriadl.
The rest are all mine taken with my phone.
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