Farmers should plant bee friendly flowers

by poolparty | November 19, 2008 at 10:35 am

1883 views | 20 Recommendations | 14 comments

Farmers around the world should plant bee friendly flowers.

The declining population of honey bees could benefit from bee-friendly flower patches. Honey bees have been declining rapidly, and by ignoring the problem it could end up hurting the world food supply. Bees would benefit from small patches of daisies, borage and lavender planted by farmers.

Honey bees, whose numbers are falling, must be given flowery "recovery zones" in Europe's farmlands to aid their survival, a leading EU lawmaker said Wednesday.

Bees pollinate numerous crops and scientists have expressed alarm over their mysterious and rapid decline.

"If we continue to neglect the global bee population, then this will have a dramatic effect on our already strained world food supplies," said Neil Parish, who chairs the European Parliament's agriculture committee.

Parish, a British conservative, said vast swathes of single crops such as wheat often made it difficult for bees to find enough nectar.

But he said farmers could help bees by planting patches of bee-friendly flowers -- including daisies, borage and lavender.

"We're talking about less than one percent of the land for bee-friendly crops -- in corners where farmers can't get to with their machinery, round trees and under hedges."

People underestimate how useful honey bees are to agriculture.

Crops such as apples, pears and berries are entirely dependent on pollinators for fruit production, while in crops like oilseed rape, sunflowers, peppers and tomatoes, visits by pollinating insects like bees improve the quality and quantity of fruit and seeds produced

Almonds, apples, avocados, blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon and many other crops all rely on honey bees for pollination.

A 2000 Cornell University study concluded that the direct value of honey bee pollination to U.S. agriculture is more than $14.6 billion.

Certain crops yield up to 25-40% more if efficiently pollinated and farmers in some areas of the world pay beekeepers to put hives into their fields and orchards.

"A failure to act now could have catastrophic consequences."

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FLexplorer

at 18:02 on November 19th, 2008

Bees are wonderful insects and they are so beautiful & fun to watch. I enjoy capturing images on them working hard collecting pollen from all kinds of plants & flowers.

FLexplorer has contributed a photo to this story.

Coastal Photography

at 19:25 on November 19th, 2008

Our home is surrounded by flowering plants. Honey bees pollinate our lemon, orange and apple trees. I took this photo of one of these hard working insects with a macro lens.
Michael Peterson, Arroyo Grande , CA

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Antonio Dacosta

at 22:16 on November 19th, 2008

50$ 2115x2453 pix 7.0"x8.2" (300dpi) 2.3 MB

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Paschen

at 23:04 on November 19th, 2008

Good point and very important. Why we do here on our Farm.

obecanobe

at 04:23 on November 20th, 2008

Please keep credit in tact as per photo ie Geoff Burrows 2008. A link back to my flickr account would also be appreciated. A fee of A$50 is required.

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bug_girl (not verified)

at 05:46 on November 20th, 2008

Almost HALF of the insects in this slide show are NOT bees. They are flies that mimic bees.

woodcut55

at 07:31 on November 20th, 2008

I believe we need to educate children and parents about where food comes from and make sure they understand the importance of bees. My neighborhood kids don't know a tomato from an apple so how would they know that a bee pollenated the flower of the tomato to make it grow? I feel lucky to have a flower garden in the city where I grow lots of bee friendly flowers. In these photos my neighborhood's monastery honey bees collect nectar from asters. It is a delight to see the European honeybee again I remember having so many as a child in our clover we had to always wear shoes outside to play to avoid stepping on them.

Barbara McPherson

at 16:50 on November 21st, 2008

You can't remind us enough about our insect friends.

Norm_A

at 01:39 on November 22nd, 2008

This honey bee was one of the last I saw this summer harvesting nectar from late summer daisies before autumn wilted them away.

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stitch witch

at 03:59 on November 28th, 2008

I LOVE BEES :~))) and grow many happy bee flowers in our garden......bzzz bzzz

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Milieunet

at 04:56 on November 28th, 2008

Yep, we need bees

matte

at 19:49 on December 13th, 2008

the decline i n bees is NOT due to to a lack of flowers. So stop this insane claim.

It is due to a fungus. A basic bit of research would have allowed the author to have discovered this and then written a more informed piece that would have talked about this major issue of fungal attack.

Paschen

at 21:58 on December 13th, 2008

You are correct matte the main problem is a fungus and the second would be pesticide use and yet lack of flowers is the third reason for the decline of Bees.