Claims of human dependency are often described as being essential to all human food production, leading to claims that without their pollination, all of humanity would starve, or even die out.Įinstein is sometimes misquoted as saying If bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. When honey bees are present as an invasive species in an area, they compete for flowers with native pollinators, which can actually push out the native species. As such, they can provide some pollination to many plants, especially non-native crops, but most native plants have some native pollinator that is far more effective at pollinating that species. What's more, their tendency to visit all species in a given area means that the pollen they carry for any one species is often very diluted. Without specialized adaptations for specific flowers, their ability to reach pollen and nectar is often limited. However, despite contributing substantially to crop pollination, there is debate about the potential spillover to natural landscapes and competition between managed honey bees and many of the 20,000 species of wild pollinators.Species of Apis are generalist floral visitors, and pollinate many species of flowering plants, but because of their 'generalized' nature, they do so inefficiently. The scale of these pollination services is commonly measured in the billions of dollars, credited with adding about 9% to the value of crops across the world.
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