Bees as pollinators – biodiversity and conservation.

Insects provide numerous primary environmental services from recycling of nutrients to pollination, beside their fundamental contribution to food resources of many vertebrate animals. Consequently insects should be at the core of any commitment of the world to the International Convention on Biodiversity. Pollination is one of the most important mechanisms in the maintenance and conservation of biodiversity and in general life on earth. Pollination also benefits society by increasing food security and improving livelihoods, hence pollinator diversity is important. Two thirds of the world’s 3000 species of agricultural crops require agents for pollination. Pollinators provide an ecosystem service that enables plants to produce fruits and seeds. Pollinators are found in diverse groups of the animal kingdom, including birds, bats, reptiles, insects, etc. Among the several animals, insects particularly honey bees, dominate in providing pollination services to several plants. Several other pollinators including carpenter bees, bumble bees, megachilids, halictids, sphecids, andrenids, syrphids, etc. are known to occur in the country. We have always under evaluated their contribution perhaps because of our limited insight into their behaviour mechanism for nesting. But today the modern beekeeping suffers from a magnitude of problems, including parasitic mites, honey bee diseases, inability of honey bees to work at low temperature and adverse climatic conditions. These difficulties threaten the honey bees general utility as an agricultural pollinator. Therefore, Conservation of biodiversity of honey bees and wild pollinators is important to realize the potential yields of several cross-pollinated crops, hybrid seed production, crops grown under poly-house conditions and in conservation of rare and endemic species in the country.