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Most people love to see bees in their garden, even if they don’t want to get too close to them.

Bees make a great sound as they buzz from flower to flower and you can’t help but admire their tireless work ethic as they fly miles and miles every day to collect nectar and pollen to produce honey.

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If a vote was taken on the world’s most popular creature, I suspect the honey bee would be in the top 10, along with elephants, giraffes and pandas.

Photo by Kevin Frayer / PNG

Every year, I learn something new about bees. For instance, I never realized how important dandelions are as a food source for bees until a friend pointed it out to me a year ago.

The same is true of the lowly crocus. I never realized what a valuable food source these tiny pretty flowers are to ravenous bees, desperately foraging for an energy boost in early spring.

Photo by GIUSEPPE CACACE / AFP/Getty Images

I now look at dandelions and crocuses with much more respect and appreciation.

A more alarming fact is that a critical shortage of pollinating bees continues to make it necessary for farmers, particularly in China, to laboriously hand-pollinate fruit trees and other crops, using paintbrushes and sticks fitted with chicken feathers or cigarette filters. Children are apparently even sent clambering into trees to do the work of bees.