CLAIMS OF HUMAN DEPENDENCY

Claims of human dependency

Western honey bees 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. Einstein is sometimes misquoted as saying If bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. But not only did the scientist not say that, there is no science to support the prediction, itself.

In fact, many important crops need no insect pollination at all. The ten most important crops, comprising 60% of all human food energy, all fall into this category: Plantains are sterile and propagated by cuttings, as are cassava. Potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes are root vegetables propagated by tubers. Soybeans are self-pollinated. Rice, wheat, sorghum, and maize are all wind-pollinated, as with all other grasses.

Similarly, no crops originating in the New World depend on the domesticated honey bee Apis mellifera at all, as the insect is invasive, having been brought over with colonists in the last few centuries. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, and all other New World crops evolved with native pollinators like squash bees, bumble bees, and other native bees. The stingless bees mentioned by Jefferson are distant relatives of the honey bees, in the genus Melipona.

Nutrion

       Honey bees obtain all of their nutritional requirements from a diverse combination of pollen and nectar. Pollen is the only natural protein source for honey bees. Adult worker honey bees consume 3.4–4.3 mg of pollen per day to meet a dry matter requirement of 66–74% protein. The rearing of one larva requires 125-187.5 mg pollen or 25-37.5 mg protein for proper development. Dietary proteins are broken down into amino acids, ten of which are considered essential to honey bees: methionine, tryptophan, arginine, lysine, histidine, phenylalanine, isoleucine, threonine, leucine, and valine. Of these amino acids, honey bees require highest concentrations of leucine, isoleucine, and valine, however elevated concentrations of arginine and lysine are required for brood rearing. In addition to these amino acids, some B vitamins including biotin, folic acid, nicotinamide, riboflavin, thiamine, pantothenate, and most importantly, pyridoxine are required to rear larvae. Pyridoxine is the most prevalent B vitamin found in royal jelly and concentrations vary throughout the foraging season with lowest concentrations found in May and highest concentrations found in July and August. Honey bees lacking dietary pyridoxine were unable to rear brood.

         Pollen is also a lipid source for honey bees ranging from 0.8% to 18.9%. Lipids are metabolized during the brood stage for precursors required for future biosynthesis. Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are not considered essential but have shown to significantly improve the number of brood reared. Honey bees ingest phytosterols from pollen to produce 24-methylenecholesterol and other sterols as they cannot directly synthesize cholesterol from phytosterols. Nurse bees have the ability to selectively transfer sterols to larvae through brood food.

Nectar is collected by foraging worker bees as a source of water and carbohydrates in the form of sucrose. The dominant monosaccharides in honey bee diets are fructose and glucose but the most common circulating sugar in hemolymph is trehalose which is a disaccharide consisting of two glucose molecules. Adult worker honey bees require 4 mg of utilizable sugars per day and larvae require about 59.4 mg of carbohydrates for proper development.

Honey bees require water to maintain osmotic homeostasis, prepare liquid brood food, and to cool the hive through evaporation. A colony's water needs can generally be met by nectar foraging as it has high water content. Occasionally on hot days or when nectar is limited, foragers will collect water from streams or ponds to meet the needs of the hive.