The Buglife Christmas Appeal
This Christmas as you tuck into delicious chocolate truffles, enjoy fresh coffee on Christmas morning, or serve up the cranberry sauce with Christmas dinner, spare a thought for the little creatures that make these delights possible!
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| Chocolate, almonds and cherries are all foods dependent upon insect
pollination © Hayley Moore |
Bugs, or invertebrates, help to make sure that we have many of the festive foods we all take for granted. Do you enjoy munching on brazil nuts, almonds and figs? Do you salivate at the thought of a sprinkling of nutmeg on your egg-nog? You can thank the invertebrates that through pollination make sure these goodies exist.
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without chocolate, but chocolate wouldn't exist without the insects that pollinate the cacao tree.
Festive foods we need insect pollination for
| Some of the foods we only enjoy because of pollination by bugs are: Chocolate - Cocoa is the processed product derived from the beans of the cacao plant. Small insects are the primary pollinators of cacao, and midges are believed to be the main insect responsible. Coffee – Coffee is derived from the fruit of coffee trees. Flowers are pollinated by bees and other insects Cranberries – The cranberry plant requires insect pollination to produce berries. Bumblebees are an excellent pollinator of this plant Brazil nuts – The flowers of the brazil nut tree are pollinated by orchid bees, which allows the fruit (the nuts) to develop Almonds – Almond blossom is pollinated by bees and other insects Figs – Smyrna figs are pollinated exclusively by the fig wasp. There is a symbiotic relationship between the fig and the wasp, each dependent on the other Nutmeg – Small insects pollinate the flowers of the nutmeg tree. It is likely that bees and beetles are involved in the production of nutmeg |
Please make a donation
We often take the small creatures we are so dependent upon for granted. Please will you help to support Buglife's conservation work by making a donation this Christmas?
Please click here to donate online, or
Please click here to download a donation form that you can print and send with your donation
