Most everyone I know has been stung by a bee at some
point in their lives. When I was five or six years old, I was walking barefoot
in our back yard. I was stooping to smell dandelions, violets, and the
hollyhock bush, as little girls are wont to do. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in
my little toe of my left foot. I bent down to see what I had stepped on—it was
a bumble bee, and she was stinging me with all her might. I think I picked the bee off my toe, and with
tears streaming down my face, went into the house to find my mama.
Bees use pollen & nectar to make honey & propolis. |
Another time, while hanging clothes on the clothesline stretched out in our back yard, I bumped the metal post to which double
wire clotheslines were attached. Out buzzed angry hornets, I think they were hornets because wasps are less likely to attack humans, from my research. Whatever they
were, I took off like a rocket on the launching pad as they buzzed after me! I
got a few stings, but it could have been much worse had I not immediately run
for the basement door. Yikes! It hurt!
Well, as annoying as bees, yellow jackets, and wasps
can be sometimes, they play a key role in pollinating plants. At least bees and
yellow jackets are pollinators; wasps and hornets, which are actually a kind of
wasp, eat other insects, helping to control them so they won’t destroy farmers’
crops.
Bees are in trouble. Since World War II, bee
populations have been in decline. In 1945 there were 4.5 million bee colonies.
In 2007 there were only 2 million colonies. Why the decline? There are three main reasons:
1. Use of pesticides on crops, 2. diseases, and 3. the flowerless landscapes of
the monoculture of high profit crops like corn and soybeans (http://sciabc.us/9PpyLG.)
Honey is a natural sweetener we get from beehives. |
Thirty-five percent of all crops in the US need bees
to pollinate them, especially the California almond crop, which has to
transport 1.5 million bee colonies from other states during pollination time,
and then transport them out again after the pollination because, due to lack of
cover crops, the bees don’t have pasture to feed on. After World War II,
farmers started doing away with cover crops like alfalfa and clover, which had supplied bees with the nectar they need to make honey (https://youtu.be/dY7iATJVCso.)
The western honey bee, which is the most commonly
known bee, while not in danger of extinction, has a declining population. More
troubling is the decline of the wild bees, who are more susceptible to colony
collapse disorder, in which bees just leave hives, often due to the effects of
pesticides and herbicides. Bumblebees are also big pollinators, especially of
tomatoes. (https://youtu.be/oF8MV64NhrE.)
We need more beekeepers & bee friendly flowers to save the bees. |
The varroa destructor mite is also a big killer of
bees in this country. These mites attack the nervous system of bees, and make
it so they cannot function as pollinators. (https://youtu.be/oF8MV64NhrE.)
What can we do to save bees? We can plant flowers.
It sounds simple, yet if we start a campaign to plant bee friendly flowers in
our yards, in public spaces, as hedge rows, as crop borders, and for cover
crops, we can greatly enhance the pasture that bees have to enjoy. And, if we
refrain from using herbicides and pesticides on our flowers, we will contribute
to helping build back up the bee population.
We need bees! Help save them and ourselves. Without
bees to pollinate our crops, we would be in danger of threatening our food
supply. Beeware and bee wary of a world without bees. We are at a tipping
point. No one wants to live in a food desert. Bee friendly and bee kind. Save
the bees!
Thanks for this. Americans are still asleep about what's happening with rising rates of extinction of our insects and other species.
ReplyDeleteThank you for shedding light on this important issue, Miirabai. Yes, bees and other pollinators are struggling. One thing we can do in our own yards to help them is to plant flowers that pollinators like bees need to survive. When selecting these plants, it’s important to make sure they have not been grown on harmful pesticide like neonicotinoids, so buying from an organic nursery instead of big box stores is helpful.
ReplyDeleteGood point about where to buy plants and seeds and which ones to buy. Neonicotinoids, found in Montsanto, now Bayer's Roundup, are one of the main toxins that harm bees and other insects, birds, and other species. Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteThank you for drawing attention to this important subject. Many places are now implementing "pollinator corridors" where we plant flowers and plants especially for the health of these crucial pollinators who were recently voted "the most important species on the planet"!
ReplyDelete