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Animal Themes
Insects
Invertebrates
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edHelper.com Animal Themes Insects Invertebrates |
Bees and Humans |
| edHelper's suggested reading level: | grades 4 to 7 | |
| Flesch-Kincaid grade level: | 7.93 |
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| Bees and Humans |
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1 Bees are very important to humans from at least two standpoints - pollination and honey. Several species of bees (such as honeybees and bumblebees) have two "pollen baskets", one on each of their hind legs. When bees make a brief stop on one flower to suck nectar with their long tongues, their hairy bodies, especially their hairy hind legs, pick up grains of pollen from the stamens (the male pollen-producing part of a flower). Then, bees use "combs" or "pollen brushes", located on the lower part of their legs, to gather all the pollen grains into one mass and store it in their pollen baskets. However, when bees fly from one flower to another, some of the pollen grains that they have collected get rubbed off on flowers that they are visiting at the time. These rubbed off pollen grains help fertilize flowers and result in producing better crops as well as seeds and fruits.