Question: Why and how do bees pollinate flowers???

Josh Makepeace answered on 18 Jun 2013:

I just want to take a moment to express how much I like bees!! We don’t have bumblebees in Australia, I find them really cute, they’re kind of like cartoon animals. They don’t look like they should be able to fly!

Pollination is one of those great things that works well for both the bees and the flowers. Flowers often need help to reproduce. They make pollen, which is like the male part of the flower. For the plant to be able to reproduce, the pollen needs to get tranported to the female part of the flower (often the pointy bit right in the middle of the flower, called the stigma).

This is where the bees come in. Bees feed on pollen and nectar that they find in flowers. While they’re collecting the pollen or nectar, some pollen normally gets stuck to their bodies. Then when they fly to another flower, there’s a good chance some of the pollen might rub off on the stigma, and then the plant is pollenated! So the bee gets food and the plant gets to reproduce. Everyone’s happy 🙂

Pollination is also really important for us. A huge amount of our food supply relies on plants which are pollinated by bees. So they’re working hard for all of us!