Honey of course!! That sweet, golden syrupy substance that you spread on your toast, stir into your tea or coffee and sweeten your deserts with is the result of months of hard work by thousands of these cute fuzzy striped buzzing little insects. In fact in 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agriculture Statistics Service, honey bees made just under 163 million pounds of honey in the United States. Now this may sound like a lot until you consider the fact, that in the same year there was between 3,924,228,267 and 4,034,459,398 pounds of honey produced globally!.

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     Now some might say that honey alone is enough to deserve our unconditional and unending gratitude but that's just a warm up act for these furry little buzzers. Honey bees play a vital role in agriculture here in the U.S. and around the world. Its estimated that we owe these social hardworking insects for 1 out of every 3 bites of food that we take. That's just over 30% of the food we eat. Clearly it goes without saying that our grocery stores would definitely look a lot less diverse and in turn there would be a lot more hungry people without our flower hopping nectar drinking little friends. In fact in the U.S. alone its estimated that honey bee pollination accounts for about $15 billion in added crop production. But the importance of honey bees doesn't stop at only agricultural crops, in fact, pollination is vital to approximately 250,000 species of flowering plants.

 

     So the next time you're enjoying the outdoors, whether it be at a park or in your own yard, and you see one of our cute industrious little friends, don't swat at her, definitely don't try to squish her,

just let her Bee..