Douce Brise Apiary - Les Avants
Episode 1, the flowers
If you feel like it, let's take a stroll through the wonderful world of bees, and nature in general, through questions, encounters, and sharing. To do so, follow the little bee through the episodes.
And for the first one, we won't immediately go to the colonies... It's true, when we talk about bees, we quickly focus on our endearing little winged creatures, and we want to open a hive or find out "how many bees are in a colony" or "how long does the queen live." But before approaching them, we'll take a look at their environment...
Without flowers, no bees, without bees, (almost) no flowers
It's a story that has been going on for over 80 million years (we, today's humans, appeared "only" about 300,000 years ago). Until then, the ancestors of bees were more of the wasp family and fed on meat and animal carcasses. At the time, plants, for their part, relied on the wind for fertilization and reproduction.
And then some of these wasps decided to become vegetarians, choosing pollen as a source of protein. At the same time, the plants seized this opportunity to rely on them for reproduction. A new partnership was born, and these were the first bees. Since then, the success of this cooperation has continued: plants and bees began to co-evolve, giving rise to the many varieties of flowering plants and pollinating insects we see today.
Both are intimately linked and depend on each other for their survival. They have begun to invent marvels of collaboration, including the production of nectar by flowers, to attract insects and allow them to carry the pollen that ensures their reproduction. This nectar is transformed by bees, in particular, to produce honey. But that's not all: many different types of collaboration exist among the multitude of pollinators other than bees. The wasp family, for its part, has remained faithful to its carnivorous diet and does not pollinate plants.
There are thousands of species of wild bees (around 20,000 worldwide, and a good thousand here), most of them solitary, which therefore do not produce honey but nevertheless also pollinate flowers, sometimes specializing in a single species. If we take a closer look at the honeybee, the one we encounter in our hives, she is rather generalist and forages on a fairly wide variety of flower species. But since she lives in colonies, with tens of thousands of individuals, she needs a lot of resources. And therefore, a varied environment throughout the season. Hence the importance of a rich and varied biotope, without poisons, of course.
Flowering meadows are therefore her natural habitat (we'll talk about trees in another episode), and it's interesting to see how they evolve and adapt to change.
From the mineral world to the plant and animal world
Plants feed on the minerals they extract from the soil. Thanks to sunlight and its energy, they integrate them into the living world.
The flower meadow is a story in itself. When the soil is poor in minerals, long-rooted plants first take root. For example, dandelions, comfrey, and blueberries are able to reach deep underground to extract precious minerals. During their annual cycle, they flower, then wither and die, depositing these minerals on the surface. The composition of the soil gradually changes over the years and becomes favorable to other species of plants and flowers, which, in turn, ensure the prosperity of the meadow. And pollinating insects benefit from the resources thus available to them. Thus, the links between the mineral, plant, and animal worlds are forged.