Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Your Breakfast Without Bees

What did you have this morning for breakfast?  While you might have honey in your cereal, honeybees contribute a lot more to breakfast!  I bet you ate (or drank) something that needs honeybees for pollination!  Let's look at just a few important breakfast foods:

Fruit:
Apples
Oranges
Blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries, and other berries Watermelon/Cantaloupe
Peaches
Pears

Other Food:
Almonds for cereal
Blueberries in muffins
Jelly or Jam for your toast

Drinks:
Milk- honeybees pollinate alfalfa, which is feed for dairy cows
Apple Juice
Orange Juice
Coffee- honeybees increase coffee yields by about 30%. (we would have about 1/3 less without them)









A breakfast with honeybee pollination..........................and without.

Photo courtesy of: Scientific American

"Bee in the Know":  Some crops, like cucumbers for pickles are dependent on honeybees for pollination.  Other fruits, vegetables, and nuts are more abundant if the bees visit them; tomatoes are a good example of this.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 20, 2010 at 11:03 PM

    Sadly, "Honey Nut Cheerios" contain far more sugar than honey see General Mills or The Beekeeper Wall Of Shame

    ReplyDelete
  2. LisaJuly 21, 2010 at 9:57 AM

    Thanks for the tip- it is a shame to know that something labeled as "Honey Nut Cheerios" actually contains more sugar.

    Americans actually consume much of their honey as an ingredient (in BBQ sauce, granola bars, cereal, etc), so I just wanted to show the kids (this website is specifically designed for upper elementary school students, but has great information for all ages) one food that they would probably recognize as having honey in it.

    Lisa

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJuly 23, 2010 at 9:30 PM

    Sadly, I think Anonymous is missing the point. This post was meant to illustrate through the breakfast plate pictures, how much honeybees pollinate in relation to only the first meal of the day. It is not to see how much actual honey is in your breakfast, or in Honey Nut Cheerios for that matter. Besides, most of the mainstream processed foods today are deceiving like this so it shouldn't be such a big shock. Granted HNC doesn't help kids enjoy true natural honey, but it takes the poster child of HNC, the bee on the box, and shows him as a positive and friendly example of a honeybee for bees, even if the cereal product he is promoting isn't really what it seems nutritionally.

    Alex the Bee Girl

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJuly 23, 2010 at 9:32 PM

    honeybee for bees*** (kids)

    ReplyDelete

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