We recently discussed that honeybees can make on-the-fly decisions individually and that they can also make group decisions by communicating with one another. Another important aspect of these remarkable insects is their role in honeybee pollination.
The flowers of various types of plants produce nectar. What is the purpose of nectar? Nectar is actually made up of two substances that are essential for plants—sugar and water. Flowers that produce nectar do so not for their direct benefit but to attract pollinators. Many plants depend on the wind to carry their pollen from one flower to another. However, this method is not very efficient because it requires a lot of pollen to fill the air, causing problems for allergy sufferers, while only a small amount will reach the intended target. A more efficient way to pollinate flowers is to attract pollinators, such as honeybees, to visit and collect pollen, either intentionally or accidentally.
Honeybees have pollen baskets on their legs to collect pollen for their use. Pollen contains protein, vitamins, minerals, and even fat, which benefits honeybees. But even more important is the nectar that honeybees use to produce honey. They accidentally collect pollen because their fuzzy bodies brush against the flower’s stamens. Honeybees even attract pollen without touching the stamens. The motion of the bees makes them positively charged, while the flowers have a negative charge, and static electricity pulls grains of pollen onto the bees’ fuzzy bodies. Honeybee pollination takes place when the bees visit another flower and deposit pollen on the sticky stamen. Ninety percent of the time, a honeybee will visit the same species of flower, which is helpful because pollen from one species would not aid a flower of a different species.
The bottom line is that 80% of the world’s most important crop plants are pollinated by insects. Two-thirds of North American crops depend on insects for pollination, and honeybees are the most vital pollinators for crops in North America. Honeybees are another part of the beautifully designed system that makes life possible in the world God created.
— Roland Earnst © 2026