Dee Lusby writes
> bees are key to feeding a hungry world.


The role of bees in ensuring our food supply has been grossly exaggerated. As I wrote in my ABJ article on pollination:

> No discussion of the history of pollination would be complete without mentioning Samuel Emmett McGregor. He lived from 1906 to 1980 and is chiefly remembered for his Insect Pollination of Cultivated Crop Plants which he wrote after he had retired as an Apiculturist for the Agricultural Research Service, Western Region, in Tucson, Arizona. As Keith Delaplane says, S. E. Mc- Gregor is one of the most misquoted individuals of our time. When people say that bees are responsible for one-third of our food, they are repeating what S. E. McGregor did NOT say. It would be well to quote him exactly: 

> Worldwide, more than 3,000 plant species have been used as food, only 300 of which are now widely grown, and only 12 of which furnish nearly 90 percent of the world’s food. These 12 include the grains: rice, wheat, maize (corn), sorghums, millets, rye, and barley, and potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassavas or maniocs, bananas, and coconuts. The grains are wind-pollinated or self-pollinated, coconuts are partially wind-pollinated and partially insect pollinated. Superficially, it appears that insect- pollination has little effect on the world’s food supply – possibly no more than 1 percent. 

> Of course, there’s more to it than that, or he wouldn’t have written a 400 page book on the subject. He explains that in 1969 about 286 million acres were cultivated in the United States. Of these, well over half was devoted to wind or self-pollinated crops such as barley, corn, oats, rice, rye, wheat, grass hay crops, sugar beets, sugar cane, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and tobacco. Only 6 million acres were planted to fruits, vegetables and nuts, most of which require insect pollination. He described the 15% of our diet that depends upon or at least benefits from pollinators. Still a lot, to be sure. And mostly the better things, as well, like apples, peaches, pumpkin pie! 

Borst, PL (2011) Short History of Pollination. American Bee Journal

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