The document discusses honey bees and their important role as pollinators. It covers the different roles of worker bees, drone bees, and the queen bee. Honey bees use the sun and their internal clocks to navigate and communicate location information through dances. Their pollination services are vital to many flowering plants and food crops. However, honey bee populations are declining due to factors like habitat loss and pesticide use. The document urges supporting honey bees through bee gardens with diverse native plants and buying local honey.

1. The Under-Appreciated Honey Bees and
the Ecosystem Service they Provide
Samantha Dinwiddie

2. Objectives
Educate Appreciation
Roles, and the making of a queen
Navigation & communication
Honey bees as pollinators
The current, unstable security of this species
and what to do about it

3. Worker bees
Take care of larvae,
building/maintaining hive, foraging,
making honey, make a queen
Drone bees
Leave nest to
mate, then die
Queen Bee
• Lay eggs

4. Bee GPS
• Solar Compass – compound eye can see
polarized light
• Internal Clock – length of flight and sun
movement

5. Communicating through Dancing
Round
Dance
Waggle
Dance
Direction,
Speed

6. The Making of a
If the hive becomes
overcrowded, the workers,
who are all female, will raise a
new queen by feeding her
royal jelly

7. Pollination
A vital interaction that allows
the transfer of genetic
material critical to the
reproductive system of most
flowering plants
In addition to the food that we eat, pollinators
support healthy ecosystems that clean the air,
stabilize soils, protect from sever weather, and
support other wildlife

9. Honey Bees as Pollinators
http://audreelapierre.com/portfolio/wp-
content/uploads/2011/01/honeybees-infographic.png

10. http://audreelapierre.com/portfolio/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/honeybees-
infographic.png

12. What’s Happening?
Theories
place most blame on
habitat loss and pesticide
use
Also looks to global warming and the
compromised pollen and nectar of GMO’s

13. “Honey Bees contribute to global
food security, and their
extinction would represent a
terrible biological [and economic]
disaster”
-Bernard Vallet, Director-General of the
World Organization for Animal Health

14. Bee Garden
• Choose flowers that bloom successively
over the spring, summer, and fall seasons
• Red, blue, yellow
• Large patches of like flowers planted in
close proximity to one another.
• No pesticides
• Researchers have found that more bees will
be drawn to gardens with ten or more
species of attractive plants.

15. Choose flowers so that garden
will bloom successively

16. Large patches of like
flowers planted in close
proximity to one another.
Ten or more species of
attractive plants.

17. Buy Local Honey
• Supports beekeepers
• Local honey complies with all food
standards requirements but is not
mistreated to give it a long shelf life.
• Strengthens body’s immune response to
local pollen
• China: biggest exporter, notorious for
tainted honey, and honey smuggling