There is the common thought that insects are pests. Many people fear them. It doesn’t matter if they are large or small, creepy crawlers or flying insects. Some people think they have no place in our world. When some people see these six legged offenders they scream like a girl and quickly stomp on them, slap them or move away as quickly as possible. Flying insects in particular have a horrible reputation. Many of these small fighter jets are armed and pack quite a punch when they decide to declare war. Many people have allergies that can make an encounter with the little winged bugs deadly, but they play a role in nature that can’t be denied. Many winged insects are pollinators. 

A pollinator lands on flowering plants and transfers the pollen from one plant to another which means plants can make seeds and reproduce. Pollination is very important in the food cycle. 80 percent of our food needs pollination, and honeybees play a big role in this process. In one trip away from the hive one worker bee will visit up to 100 flowers. The honey bee is the only insect that makes food that is eaten by humans. Honey is stored in the cells of the hive and is not just delicious to us but is the main food for the bees. The queen bee gets a special honey called royal jelly. Royal jelly helps the queen grow and stay healthy.

Honeybees live in a colony called a hive. Inside the hive are three kinds of bees: workers, drones and a queen. Each kind of bee in the hive has a job to do. The workers are all children of the queen and they are also female. Even though they are female they do not reproduce. They have many jobs. The most important job is to protect the hive, the queen and larvae. They also collect nectar, clean the hive and make honey. A hive will have 20,000 or more worker bees. That also means the hive has 20,000 or more stingers waiting for an unsuspecting passerby. The hive also has a few hundred drones. The drones are a little bigger than the workers and they are all males, they do not have stingers and they only have one job. The drone’s job is to mate with the queen. The largest bee in the hive is the queen and each hive only has one. The queen also only has one job. Her job is to lay eggs. A queen can lay up to 3,000 eggs per day!!

Populations of honey bees are declining and there are many reasons for this. Some of the reasons that bees are endangered are due to human intervention like habitat loss, and pesticides. We use pesticides to get rid of insects that are unwanted. The problem with that is bees are also insects. Another factor in the decline of honey bees is disease. There are many diseases that can affect honey bees and some may kill an entire hive. Anyone can help save the bees. Plant some flowers or flowering trees and limit the use of insecticides.