You may remember a lesson in school about honey bees and flowers, but you may not know the intricate details of their awesome relationship and how it benefits humans. An important part of that dynamic is pollination, which allows flowering plants to reproduce-- but they can’t do it without the help of bees.

Why Bees Need Flowers

Most bee species, including honey bees, live in colonies of tens of thousands, which means they need plenty of food to keep the colony alive.

After visiting multiple flowers, honey bees head back to their colonies and store nectar in honeycombs, creating honey by fanning their wings to speed up the evaporation process. The bees also mix pollen with nectar to create beebread, which feeds young members of the colony (larvae).

Why Flowers Need Bees

As honey bees visit new flowers, they spread pollen. If the pollen from one flower is spread to another within the same species, cross-pollination occurs. The process of cross-pollination allows flowers to reproduce, as bees give them the pollen they need to create seeds.

How Do Bees Help Humans?

We might be a little biased, but we think you would agree that protecting ecosystems in which flowers can thrive is important. Flowers improve our surroundings and spruce up our living spaces, in addition to their benefits to the environment.

If that’s not enough, two-thirds or more of the plants people eat depend on pollination to survive. Simply put, we need honey bees just as much as flowers do!

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You may not be a fan of honey bees when they’re invading your space, but we believe they deserve respect and appreciation. Various species of bees are endangered, and without them, many of the food resources we take for granted would be eliminated. We can lose the true beauty and symbolism of flowers, and entire ecosystems would suffer.

Taking small steps, such as caring for a garden of your own and supporting local beekeepers can help honey bees and improve the overall health of our communities.

Keep the true nature of beauty alive. Love your local honey bees!