Why Are Honeybees Important? — Reading Comprehension

Grades

Standards

MS-LS2-4
RI.6.3
RI.7.3
RI.8.8

About This Reader

This passage explores the essential ecological and agricultural roles of honeybees, supporting NGSS standard MS-LS2-4 on ecosystem dynamics and functioning. Tailored for 7th-grade students, the content highlights how honeybees contribute to biodiversity and food production through pollination of over 90 different crops. Students discover the remarkable interdependence between flowering plants and honeybees, with special attention to almond production—where commercial beekeeping operations relocate millions of colonies annually to California orchards. The passage creates connections between pollination services and everyday foods, helping students understand that approximately one-third of human food requires bee pollination. By examining threats to honeybee populations including parasites, diseases, pesticides, and habitat loss, students can evaluate how these changes affect not only bee populations but entire ecosystems and human food security. The content reinforces the concept that ecosystem stability depends on maintaining biodiversity and helps students recognize how small organisms like honeybees have disproportionately large impacts on both natural systems and human agriculture.

CONTENT PREVIEW

Honeybees are some of the hardest workers on our planet. These buzzing insects do much more than make honey. They are key helpers in growing many foods we eat every day.

The main job of honeybees is pollination. As bees fly from flower to flower looking for sweet nectar, tiny bits of pollen stick to their fuzzy bodies. When they visit the next flower, some of this pollen rubs off. This helps plants make seeds and grow fruits or veggies.

Honeybees pollinate more than 90 different food crops. These include apples, almonds, blueberries, cucumbers, and many more. In fact, about one-third of the food we eat needs help from bees! Without honeybees, these foods would be very rare and cost a lot more money.

Almond trees rely on honeybees the most. These trees cannot make nuts without pollen from another almond tree. Every year, beekeepers move over a million bee colonies to California just to pollinate almond trees. This is the largest bee event in the world!

Besides food crops, honeybees also pollinate many wildflowers and plants that feed wildlife. They help keep our world green and full of life. Bees even pollinate cotton plants, which helps us make clothes.

Honeybees are special because they can be kept in hives and moved to farms that need help with pollination. One hive can hold up to 60,000 bees! Also, while other pollinators may visit just a few types of flowers, honeybees visit many different kinds.

Today, honeybees face many threats. Mites and diseases can make bees sick. Chemicals used to kill bugs on farms can harm bees too. Loss of flowers gives bees less food to eat. When we help honeybees, we help ourselves and our food supply.

Fun fact: A single honeybee will make only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its whole life, but a strong hive can make over 100 pounds of honey in a year!

What is the main job of honeybees mentioned in the passage?

Making honeyPollinationBuilding hivesFighting other insects

About how many different food crops do honeybees pollinate?

About 30About 50About 90About 200

According to the passage, which crop depends on honeybees the most?

ApplesBlueberriesCottonAlmonds

Why do beekeepers move their bee colonies to California?

To collect more honeyTo protect bees from cold weatherTo pollinate almond treesTo study bee behavior

About how many bees can live in one hive?

Up to 6,000Up to 60,000Up to 600,000Up to 6 million

Which is NOT mentioned as a threat to honeybees?

MitesDiseasesHurricanesChemicals