None of our beeswax, indeed
(right: photo by Stephanie, aka wishymom)
Over the past year, honeybees have been dying in droves across the world. To compound this already alarming development, the bees often haven’t even simply just dropped dead–they’ve completely vanished from the hives altogether. Scientists and beekeepers are still trying to identify the root cause of the skyrocketing bee mortality/vanishing rate, so for lack of a definitive answer, it has been tentatively attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) .
CCD is an umbrella term for a number of possible factors, including environmental change-related stresses (such as travel or climate change), malnutrition, disease, pests (such as the verroa mite), exposure to certain pesticides (such as neonicotinoids or imidacloprid) or genetically modified (GM) crops with pest control characteristics (like transgenic corn). Mobile phone radiation appears to have been ruled out, but at this point it is just not known which factor, or combination of factors, is responsible for the die-off–about 30% of hives have been lost in both Canada and the US, with Saskatchewan suffering losses of 24% .
When I first heard about this disturbing phenomenon last year, I did not realise that the vast majority of the affected bees were not native bees, but rather honeybees raised by commercial beekeepers. These bees produce honey, obviously, but they are also responsible for helping to pollinate a large number of fruit and vegetable crops in Ontario and British Columbia. These types of bees are also extremely important to the US agricultural industry, as they are shipped in from long distances every year to pollinate an estimated one-third of American fruit and vegetable crops, mainly in California. A decade ago, the value of bees to crop pollination was pegged at $782 million yearly in Canada (and about $14 billion in the US in 2000) .
Honeybees therefore have a huge role to play in the North American food chain. In response to the die-off, beekeepers have been replacing their bees at great expense with unaffected queen bees from New Zealand. But how long can that continue? It is simply not financially viable for beekeepers to replace a third of their stock every year–and what happens if CCD starts to affect New Zealand bees as well?
The die-off has helped raise awareness of how dependent we are on insect pollinators, and about how they can be all too vulnerable to unexpected collapse. So, what can we do about the problem? Interestingly, bees turned loose to pollinate organically-grown crops have not experienced near the same attrition levels as bees that pollinate crops exposed to pesticides. This could well indicate yet another good reason to buy organically-raised produce. You should also try to buy locally-produced honey, as it supports local beekeepers and helps to boost local honeybee populations. It’s easy to find (try the Farmers’ Market, Steep Hill Co-op, or the SaskMade Market). Or at the very least, stick to Canadian-produced honey, which has much higher quality controls than some other parts of the world–as with all food products, it’s just not worth it to buy dirt-cheap honey.
It’s also a good idea to help encourage bees by providing bee-friendly habitat in general. Did you know that there are 800 different species of bees in Canada? Our world would be a strange, less lovely, and much hungrier place without them. You can find plenty of tips to help them here:
Hinterland Who’s Who: The Bumblebee (Bee Courteous, Bee Safe)
10 things to do to help honeybees
A guide to urban bee-friendly gardens
May 16th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Scaling up urban beekeeping could be a great way to boost bee numbers - there is at least one apiary in my neighborhood and we buy the honey from a small local grocery. It is really well-suited to cities actually, because it doesn’t require much space - apparently there are loads of beekeepers selling their honey in Brooklyn and New York community gardens (even on rooftop gardens!).
I’ve also read that city bees are more productive than country bees and that the honey might even be more “pure” or organic. Interesting article about this and London beekeepers in the Independent: “The countryside seems green and clean, but the crops are often covered in pesticides,” explains James Hammill, a former actor turned owner of The Hive Honey Shop in south London, which stocks honey produced at the Hammills’ 40 hives across London and southern England. “Bees in cities produce more honey. We get 40 to 50 jars per hive every season in our country apiaries; in the city, we get more like 150 jars.” http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/why-londons-beekeepers-are-a-growing-band-476750.html
The types of plants we grow are also really important - planting a bee garden with a diversity of bee-attracting trees, shrubs, and flowers (like Bee Balm in your post!) not only brings in the native bees, but also tends to call the butterflies, hummingbirds, and beneficial insects like wasps and lady bugs. Examples: Cosmos, black-eyed Susans, lupines, whatever your native wildflowers are.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Yes, I should have added that along to the list: consider getting your own bees! Like you say, they are actually perfect for the urban environment because they don’t need much space. I’m not surprised about city bees being more productive than in the country; maybe there are a larger variety of plant species around for them to browse than on acres and acres of monoculture crops on a farm? I remember at Fauchon in Paris they had dozens of different types of honeys, including some from bees that live on the top of the Opera House (a nice article about it here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E6D7103BF935A15755C0A9659C8B63). I’m actually thinking of looking into it for next year…although I must find out if bees fall into the same category as chickens for the City of Saskatoon’s livestock laws.
The Hinterland Who’s Who article on bees has a link to the Canadian Wildlife Service’s Wild About Gardening site: http://www.wildaboutgardening.org/en/growing/section1/index.htm. They have advice there about how to choose native plants for different hardiness zones that will encourage wildlife, including beneficial insects. There’s also other neat stuff, like how to start a community wildlife habitat project.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I guess allergies to bees have to be a consideration if you’re keeping bees in the city. After I put in a bunch of bee-friendly plants, my next door neighbour told me that she was deathly allergic to bee stings. Luckily for me she never goes outside.
At the very least, you can get one of those wooden nesting boxes to attract mason bees/orchard bees. (Maybe that birding/gardening store on 2nd Ave. (Backyard Gardener?) would have them?) They would be really easy to build though and it could be a fun kid project if the kids are really advanced and use power tools, or if you used straws to stick in the holes, or.. something. Here’s a description of how to build one, with photos: http://www.wingsinflight.com/gardbees.html
May 19th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
That’s a great story about the Paris opera house bees. Definitely, there would be a much greater variety of plants for the bees to choose from in the city - I hadn’t thought of that.
The American version of the Canadian Wildlife Service, the National Wildlife Federation, has a really great guide called “The Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming” - it is a free download. I used it in a class I taught about “climate-proofing” your yard, and there is really good information about how wildlife is going to be affected by warmer temperatures, disrupted rain and snowfall patterns, shifting climate zones/hardiness zones, and plant diversity (invasive plants pushing out natives, etc.). Bleak scenarios, but lots of practical suggestions for what we can do in our own yards, neighbourhoods, and cities to either adapt or help (a little) to mitigate climate change. http://www.nwf.org/globalwarming/