If you can get past the fear of being stung, bees can be beneficial for the health of your yard
Many people have an inherent fear of buzzing bees. The sight of their seemingly massive black and yellow bodies flying around their faces can be intimidating. Even the idea of being stung is enough to not want any around at all.
While this reaction is understandable, it is certainly not practical. Not just for the health and beauty of your yard or garden, but for the world as well. Bees are one of the most crucial insects on the planet. They help replenish and grow plants, flowers, and trees. This makes life on Earth possible and beautiful.
Bee populations globally are dwindling, especially in the U.S. — a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). CCD happens when the majority of a colony’s worker bees suddenly disappear. The result is that food, the queen, and a few nurse bees are left to care for the immature ones. CCD has been especially prevalent in the last five years or so and is getting worse.
Bees are the perfect pollinator. If you have plants and flowers in your garden, you should be doing your best to keep bees around. They will provide your garden with nutrients. They help regrow plants and flowers in your area. These busy bugs also assist in keeping more bees around to provide food for humans.
Here are some reasons you should not get rid of bees. You may even consider getting more of them in your garden by making your own colony.
Plant and Flower Pollination
Bees naturally collect nectar for their hives. In doing this, they spread the seeds of plants and flowers. When bees land on plants and flowers, their pollen and nectar stick to the fur of bees’ legs and bodies. Bees will ensure the regrowth of all your flowers and plants in succeeding years. The result is a healthy garden for a long time.
Bees are at least partially responsible for pollinating up to 75% of the world’s food crops. In fact, bees visit 90% of the largest global crops. Because of bees, we can enjoy foods such as apples, nuts, seeds, vanilla, and pears.
Coffee, cocoa, soybean, palm oil, and avocados are staples of lower-income countries. These crops are heavily dependent on bees to pollinate them. The declining population of bees means less production of those products. When there are less of a product, the result is higher prices.
If the bee population were to die out, many crops (and even many people) would die with them.
Turf Manager Bee Promise
Before we ever treat your yard or event space, we first check with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture Apiary Registry. With this information, we know exactly who has bees near you. We then take extra precautions when we treat your yard. Working with beekeepers enables them to protect their hives if they feel their bees may be at risk.
You may have bees yourself. If you do, it’s important to protect your bees and yourself as well. You should register your beehive with the Tennessee Apiary Registry. First off, this protects your bees. It also protects you in the case of widespread disease or plague that affects honeybees. Diseases like American Foulbrood can devastate your population, your investment, and the environment. Registering your beehive also helps do our job more effectively. We can ensure that when we spray, we can take every precaution available to protect your bees.
Production of Food
Bees are the only insects that provide a source of food for humans. Honey has been feeding humans for thousands of years and is one of the only foods that never spoils. There are Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting the harvesting of honey. There are also countless paintings of the process throughout the ages.
Honey is a wonder food and has numerous benefits. It provides humans with:
- Vitamin B1, B3, and B6
- Minerals such as calcium, iron, potassium, and zinc
- Antioxidants
You can drizzle honey over desserts, added to coffee and tea as a sweetener, and used in various cooking and baking capacities. It is a much healthier alternative to high-fructose corn syrup. That bad ingredient has been seeping more and more into our foods lately. It’s found in many sweets and other processed foods.
Other Foods
Not only do bees make honey for us to consume, but they also help crops that feed other food that we eat. Crops such as clover and alfalfa rely heavily on bees’ pollination. They are grown to feed livestock for meat production. Some of the most important and biggest producing crops are known as cash crops. The farmers that grow these essential crops are dependent on them. These crops in general rely on bees to pollinate them.
Honey can also ferment and used to make mead. Mead is a type of honey wine. It is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey, yeast, and water. To flavor mead, you can use hops, fruit, or spices.
Honey Has Antibacterial Properties
Honey is a fantastic, healthier alternative to using sugar in baking and cooking. It also has antibacterial properties. Honey kills bacteria and prevents infections in skin wounds. It is also known to help with allergy relief because it has trace amounts of pollen.
Although currently unproven by science, honey may help reduce wrinkles and cleanse acne-prone skin.
Wax Production and Its Uses
Bees make their home and store their honey in giant houses of wax honeycombs. Going back to the 6th century A.D., people have been using honeycomb wax for various purposes:
- Wax for wooden furniture
- Concrete polish
- Beauty products
- Candles
- Cavitiy filler
There are many modern, everyday uses for beeswax, such as:
- Shampoo
- Candles
- Salves
- Deodorants
- Moisturizers
- Tonics
- Wraps
- Preserve for copper and bronze
- Waterproofing leather
- Wax wrapping on cheese
Final Thoughts
Bees are not dangerous and frightening. They are providers and an essential part of the local and global ecosystem, providing food and nourishment for almost every person on the planet. In fact, you should even consider getting a beehive population in your yard or on your roof. It’s actually an inexpensive and easy process to set up and maintain.
A colony will only pollinate within five miles of its hive. If you have bees in your yard or are farming bees yourself this is great news. Your bees will keep your plants and flowers blooming beautifully and producing food.
The easiest way to help the declining bee population is to plant flowers. By keeping a lush, healthy garden, you can do your part to assist with the regrowth of bees. As you help them, you can enjoy all the benefits they offer.
In conclusion, bees are not pests that need to be swatted away or exterminated. They should be treated with care and welcomed into your garden. At Turf Managers, we help with planting all the best flowers to help the bee population and make your yard beautiful. We can also safely get rid of annoying insects that are less vital to the human population, such as mosquitoes.
Turf Managers has a state-of-the-art mosquito control system called Skeeter Defeater. If you want to have a fantastic mosquito-free yard all summer long, contact Turf Managers to learn more about our amazing Skeeter Defeater system.
