Save Ice Cream! #HelpHoneyBees
Häagen-Dazs knows the importance of honeybees to ice cream. Pollination is "essential for ingredients in nearly 50 percent of our all-natural superpremium flavors," according to their website, HelptheHoneyBees.com.
In an effort to raise awareness for the decline in honeybee populations around the world, they are helping fund research for scientists to learn more about the problem and find solutions. Over the last three years, one in three honeybee colonies has died. Scientists are calling the phenomenon CCD for Colony Collapse Disorder. In CCD cases, all of the bees in a colony abruptly disappear, deserting the hive.
Fast Honeybee Facts:
One of every three bites the average American eats is directly attributed to honey bee pollination.
Honey bees are responsible for the pollination of more than 100 crops, including fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
They provide 80 percent of the country's pollination services.
Without honey bee pollination, one-third of our food supply would be in jeopardy.
How You Can Help Honeybees:
Tweet using #helphoneybees: For every tweet between Nov. 5-11 that includes #HelpHoneyBees, Häagen-Dazs will donate $1 to the University of California at Davis, which is doing great research into Colony Collapse Disorder. The donations are capped at a maximum of $500 for each of the 7 days (a total of $3,500). Find out more...
For easy copying and pasting:
Häagen-Dazs to donate $1 for every #HelpHoneyBees tweet Nov. 5-11 to fund Colony Collapse Disorder research http://su.pr/5oMnCY (via @NWF)
** UPDATE FROM TWITCAUSE ** "Following our extremely successful first day of #HelpHoneyBees, Häagen-Dazs has generously decided to DOUBLE their maximum daily donation, from the initial $500 to a new maximum of $1,000 per day (for a new grand total of $7,000)! We're super excited with the news and want to send a special thank you to all of you that have been tweeting! Keep it up!"
Learn more about Häagen-Dazs' efforts to "Help the Honeybees": Not only can you spark donations through Twitter, but also with your "bee built" ice cream purchases. They even created a special flavor as a tribute: Vanilla Honey Bee.
Turn your garden into a Certified Wildlife Habitat™: Provide habitat suitable for bees, birds, butterflies and other pollinators.
More Honeybee info:
"The Buzz on Native Pollinators" - National Wildlife® magazine: As European honeybees decline, indigenous bees and other pollinating animals can provide a backup--with a little help from their human friends.
"Busy with Bees" - National Wildlife® magazine: In Bavaria, a team of industrious scientists uses high-tech tools to study the secret lives of honeybees--work that could shed light on the pollinators' mysterious disappearances.
Three Ways to Plant for Pollinators
Get more tips from this National Wildlife® magazine web exclusive.
Select plants that provide a lot of nectar and pollen. Many ornamentals have been specifically bred to produce little or none of these essential foods.
Plant a diversity of species so your yard will provide bees, butterflies and other animals with nectar and pollen from spring through fall. To attract bats and nocturnal moths, consider night-blooming plants in addition to day-bloomers.
Be a "messy" gardener: Leave some patches of unmulched soil and brush piles that bees, birds and other animals can use to construct nests. Consider building or purchasing a bee house for wood-nesting wasps and bees.
Thanks for sharing this! I heard someone say the other day that because they hadn't heard any press coverage of CCD lately, they thought the problem had gotten better.
Posted by: Kirsten@Nexyoo | November 05, 2009 at 11:47 AM
This is so awesome!!! Save the little Bees!!!
Posted by: @h0neyb | November 05, 2009 at 08:50 PM
Role of honeybees in crop production
Normally four kinds of breeding barriers are found in the angiosperms. These include: self-incompatibility, differential sexual maturity, unisexuality and heterostyly (Frankel and Galun; 1977, Faegri and Van der Pijl, 1979;Sihag,1997). Agricultural plants too are not the exceptions. Examples of the crops showing complete or partial self-incompatibility are presented in table 1. In the flowers of these crops, either the self-pollen will not germinate or the pollen tube fails to reach the ovule. The fertilization of the ovule(s) is not possible. Therefore, conspecific pollen must come from other flowers ( i.e.cross-pollination is obligatory). In some crops, anthers mature much before the receptivity of the stigma of the same flower (Table 1). Therefore, self-pollination is not of any use in these crops and cross-pollination is a pre-requisite for seed set. In some other crops the stigma matures much before the dehiscence of the anthers and when the pollen is liberated in a flower its stigma has already become non-receptive (Table 1). Here too, pollen to a receptive stigma must come from the other flower(s). In some crops, the flowers are unisexual although male and female flowers are borne on the same plant (Table 1). Here pollen must come from a male flower to a female flower for seed set/fruit formation. Some plants are unisexual i.e. the plant bears either male flowers or female flowers (Table 1). Here also pollen must come from the male to the female
Table 1: Breeding and pollination status of different crop plants.
S.No. Common name of the crop Botanical name of the crop Breeding status Pollination status
1. Rapeseed toria Brassica campestris L. var. toria SI CP
2. Sarson Brassica campestris L. var. sarson SI CP
3. Rocket cress Eruca sativa Mill SI CP
4. Sunflower Helianthus annuus L. SI CP
5. Clove Oil Syzygium aromaticum SI CP
6. Cauliflower Brassica oleracea L.var. botrytis SI CP
7. Turnip Brassica rapa L. SI CP
8. Radish Raphanus satcvus L. SI CP
9. Apple Malus sylvestris Mill. SI CP
10. Almond Prunus amygdalus Batsch SI CP
11. Plum Prunus domestica L. SI CP
12. Pear Pyrus communis L. SI CP
13. Carambola Averrhoa carambola L. SI CP
14. Sweet cheery Prunus avium L. SI CP
15. Sour cherry Prunus cerasus L. SI CP
16. Passion fruit Passiflora spp. SI CP
17. Citrus Citrus spp. SI CP
18. Grape Vitis vinifera L. SI CP
19. Apricot Prunus armenica L. SI CP
20. Jujuba Zizyphus jujuba Mill. PT CP
21. Carrot Daucus carota L. PT CP
22. Celery Apium graveolens L. PT CP
23. Parsnip Pastinaca sativa L. PT CP
24. Fennel Foeniculum vulgare L. PT CP
25. Coriander Coriandrum sativum L. PT CP
26. Cumin Cuminum cyminum L. PT CP
27. Lavender Lavandula spp. PT CP
28. Black pepper Piper nigrum L. PG CP
29. Pawpaw Asimina triloba L. PG CP
30. Cherimoya Annona cherimola Mill. PG CP
31. Papaya Carcia papaya L. US1 CP
32. Datepalm Phoenix dactylifera L. US1 CP
33. Chinese gooseberry Actinidia chinensis Planch US1 CP
34. Asparagus Asparagus officinalis L. US2 CP
35. Coconut Cocos nucifera L. US2 CP
36. Oil palm Elaeis guineesis US2 CP
SI = Self-incompatible, PT = Protandrous, PG= Protogynous, ,
US1 = Flowers unisexual, US2 =Plants unisexual, CP=Cross-pollinated
flowers. Still in some cases, male and female parts are not at the same height, which may also necessitate cross-pollination. Due to these breeding barriers, therefore, flowers of many crops require cross-pollination for seed/fruit set (Sihag; 2001). Honeybees are considered to be the best pollen vectors and pollinators of crops due to their following characteristics:-
i) Their larvae are dependent on nectar and pollen as their food.
ii) They bear hair on their bodies for carrying pollen from one flower to the other flower.
iii) Their population can be manipulated as per the requirement.
iv) They have high floral constancy i.e. individual bee makes repeated visits to the same type of flowers.
v) The colonies can be transported from one place to the other place.
In large number of crops, honeybees have been reported to increase their see yield (Free, 1993). That is why; beekeeping too has been characterized as one of the inputs in agriculture (Sihag, 2001).
For more readings please consult:
Faegri K. and van der Pijl, L. 1979. The Principles of Pollination Ecology. Pergamon Press. 291 p.
Frankel, R. and Galun, E. 1977. Pollination Mechanisms, Reproduction and Plant Breeding. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 281 + xiP.
Free, J.B. 1993. Insect Pollination of Crops. Academic Press, London, 684 p.
Sihag,R.C.(Ed.).1997. Polination Biology : Basic ad Aplied Pnciples.Rajendra Scientific Pubishers, Hisar, 210p.
Sihag, R.C. 2001. Why should beekeeping be utilized as an input in agriculture? Current Sci. 81: 1514-1516.
Posted by: Prof. R.C.Sihg | November 07, 2009 at 01:16 AM