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Review
. 2022 Feb 1;11(2):233.
doi: 10.3390/biology11020233.

The Honey Bee Apis mellifera: An Insect at the Interface between Human and Ecosystem Health

Giulia Papa  1   2 , Roberto Maier  3 , Alessandra Durazzo  4 , Massimo Lucarini  4 , Ioannis K Karabagias  5 , Manuela Plutino  6 , Elisa Bianchetto  7 , Rita Aromolo  8 , Giuseppe Pignatti  9 , Andrea Ambrogio  10 , Marco Pellecchia  11 , Ilaria Negri  1
Affiliations
Review

The Honey Bee Apis mellifera: An Insect at the Interface between Human and Ecosystem Health

Giulia Papa et al. Biology (Basel). .

Abstract

The concept of ecosystem services is widely understood as the services and benefits thatecosystems provide to humans, and they have been categorised into provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services. This article aims to provide an updated overview of the benefits that the honey bee Apis mellifera provides to humans as well as ecosystems. We revised the role of honey bees as pollinators in natural ecosystems to preserve and restore the local biodiversity of wild plants; in agro-ecosystems, this species is widely used to enhance crop yield and quality, meeting the increasing food demand. Beekeeping activity provides humans not only with high-quality food but also with substances used as raw materials and in pharmaceuticals, and in polluted areas, bees convey valuable information on the environmental presence of pollutants and their impact on human and ecosystem health. Finally, the role of the honey bee in symbolic tradition, mysticism, and the cultural values of the bee habitats are also presented. Overall, we suggest that the symbolic value of the honey bee is the most important role played by this insect species, as it may help revitalise and strengthen the intimate and reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world, avoiding the inaccuracy of considering the ecosystems as mere providers of services to humans.

Keywords: Apis mellifera; agro-ecosystems; bee products; biodiversity; cultural services; ecosystem services; honey bee; provisioning services; regulating services.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Benefits provided by A. mellifera in crop production. (a) Yield increase in almond, kiwi, avocado, and soybean crops; (b) increase in fruit weights in Cucurbita spp., fava bean, and sunflower.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scopus trend of the documents on cultural ecosystem services from 2007 to 2021 (Data from Scopus online Database; accessed on 8 November 2021).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The Ri-natura project of the Sorbolo-Mezzani Municipality. Areas of intervention (a,c) and projects to transform them into multiservice green areas (b,d) with wildflower meadows (*), recreation/educational areas (**), and a small apiary (***). Photo courtesy of Sorbolo-Mezzani Municipality.
Figure 4
Figure 4
High school students at the Picasso Food Forest of Parma. (a) Volunteers providing knowledge to students on the importance of seeds of nectariferous and polliniferous wild plants; (b) students seeding the wildflower meadow (Erasmus Plus project, From Seed to Spoon 2019-1-IT02-KA201-062392).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Pollinator habitats in naturalist paintings by A. Ambrogio. Courtesy of A. Ambrogio.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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