Bees are far more important to us, than the majority of people realize. It is widely known that bees make honey and produce beeswax that we can use for candles. But did you know that the bees are indispensable for our global food supply?
About a third of our global food supply relies on animal pollination. With the increasing prosperity, the crops – vegetables and fruits – that depend on animal pollination became more important than the crops that are not dependent on animal pollination, such as grain and corn.
The honeybee is one of the most important pollinators. On its foraging flights the honeybee, on average, covers an area of 3 to 5 kilometers around the hive (1.9 to 3.1 miles), but at food scarcity they might fly as far as 7 kilometers (4,3 miles) from the hive.
(This corresponds to a surface area of resp. 30, 80 en 150 square kilometers!) The large-scale fields within modern agriculture lack the bio-diversity that the wild/solitary bees need to survive. The honeybee can cover these large fields with ease. That is why the honeybee became indispensable for modern agriculture.
=> Follow this link for a forage area example
