The GreenRoost Blog

photo credit to Cornell University Insect Conservation Biology

Last week I got to see an eye-opening program on PBS about the disappearance of bees worldwide. It was a very informative  show about a situation that everyone who’s gotten used to eating more than just a few kinds of grain should know about.

At the time of the production of this program, Silence of the Bees, a condition called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) had emptied beehives in 35 states and from Europe to South America. Bees were disappearing and no one knew why. An estimated 600,000 of America’s 2.6 million colonies had disappeared (that’s almost a quarter); in some areas of the US, up to eighty percent of honeybees vanished in as little as six months. Gene Robinson, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that bees are “the most important pollinator on the planet.” They account for one-third of the food produced in the US, pollinating nearly 100 of the most important crops, including nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, fiber crops, and even forage crops for livestock. According to the video, the value of the bees’ services is more than $15 billion dollars. Not to mention, America feeds the world; the ramifications are staggering.

Scientists are researching various causes: toxic pesticides, parasites, malnutrition, and an AIDS-like virus. They still do not know whether the cause is biotic or abiotic, but many scientists seem to believe that the cause of depopulation is multifaceted, a combination of factors. Certainly the strain we put on these little workhorses might be a contributing element. We rely on bees to do their natural work on a very unnatural scale. Farmers continue to require larger crop yields and farms continue to consume more land, which leaves less habitat for wild pollinators. This has created a large market for beekeepers that are able to transport their hives all over the country to pollinate crops. This niche market is a sign of damage to ecosystems and is not sustainable in the long run.

In the Southern Sichuan Province in China, the bees are gone due to pesticide use in the early 1980s. There, people have to hand-pollinate their pear trees. This is a very expensive and time-consuming process. One hive of bees can pollinate up to three million flowers in one day; in contrast, one human can only pollinate up to thirty trees. Farmers have been able to survive, but these are largely family operations, and more and more youth are moving to the cities. The numbers available to carry on this bee-replacement legacy are dwindling.

After the initial reports from about a quarter of participating beekeepers, the number of apiaries reporting CCD increased to 36 percent from 2007 to 2008. However, the 2008-2009 survey found the number reduced to only a quarter, so there was a modest drop in losses. While this is encouraging, the crisis is far from over. The Agricultural Research Service has launched a five-year program to improve the health of honeybees.

In the meantime, there are things that common citizens can do to help honeybees. It’s as simple as choosing to buy pesticide-free foods at the market. Or add your signature to the Soil Association’s petition to ban neonicotinoids, pesticides that contain neurotoxins to which bees are very sensitive. Go a step further and plant native and adapted species in your garden that bees love, like coreopsis and germander. Planting flowers in large patches that bloom in succession over the summer will offer a welcome supply of nectar and pollen for honeybees whose foraging habitat is ever more limited by urbanization. Ask at a local garden center if you’re not sure what to plant, but try to mix annuals and perennials. Also, keep part of your garden ‘wild’ as opposed to manicured because bees prefer that, and remember that bees don’t distinguish between weeds and cultivated plants, so leave your dandelions alone! And please, keep your garden pesticide-free. Something else you can do is write to your senators and representatives in Congress to garner their support. Finally, if you really want to jump on the bee bandwagon, read up and find a local beekeepers’ association to learn about becoming a backyard beekeeper. This can strengthen the bee gene pool by increasing the healthy local bee population.  A local couple has created almost more business than they can handle from their beekeeping hobby.

While Bees are still in danger, there are things that can be done. As long as there is still something we can do that is in harmony with nature, there is still hope.