pune even as a child i was interested in growing my own food and was making a steady harvest of chilli ginger spinach tulsi and mint however i was somehow failing with tomatoes a quick online search revealed that bumble bees are the best tomato plant pollinators but they could not fly high enough to reach my fifthfloor apartment this got me interested in bees i ended up visiting the central bee research institute in pune initially like everyone i was scared of bees but the training changed my view there is so much more to bees than just honey and sting thats how bee the lead a bee conservation initiative to transform human behaviour towards bees was bornlet me tell you of the many ways how the bee society is similar to human society in many cases the bees are doing a better job than ustake their social structure for example just one queen bee runs a colony of 60000 bees flawlessly most bees are worker bees who aid the queen in getting food nurseconstruct the hive and ensure its security but the selection of the queen is a truly democratic processbees are also bakers yes bees make bee bread a nutrientdense superfood made of honey and fermented pollen that is fed to baby beesworkers take care of the queen and even feed her however at times they also make the queen go on a crash diet this is to help her lose weight and fly out of the hive during the swamping seasonbees have a knack for spotting good real estate too they leave the hive if the area hashigh radiation or pollutionthen there is disease prevention covid etched distancing and vaccination into public consciousness bees which live in large groups and share food mouthtomouth have similar mechanisms to boost hygiene they spray their hives with antimicrobial resin to prevent infection spread within the hive virusinfected bees practice social distancing inside the hive healthy worker bees can smell infected larvae and remove such broods the queen bee also vaccinates eggs with fragments of proteins fromdiseasecausing pathogens nurse bees pass antigens to the queen for inoculation into her eggs nurse bees also feed larva for the first few days this way the bees get vaccinated twice once by the queen and then by nurseswithout sitting for chemistry exams bees know that sugar lasts longer if broken into sucrose and fructose even yoga takes inspiration from the bees bhramari pranayama or humming bee breath lowers blood pressure easing hypertensionmost of us see bees as honey production machines but their biggest contribution is as pollinators they are a vital part of our ecosystem responsible for food securityin fact my favourite native solitary bees bluebanded bees are excellent pollinators they can perform a type of pollination called buzz pollination some flowers hide their pollen inside tiny capsules a bluebanded bee can grasp a flower of this type and shake her flight muscles causing the pollen to shoot