Bees: what’s the buzz all about?

Bees are among the most helpful insects in the world–producers of honey, builders of hives, living in strictly organized communities they contribute more than just sweetner for our pots of tea.  Bees are responsible for every third bite we eat–they pollinate as much as 30% of our food supply, according to Zac Browning, vice-president fo the American Beekeeping Federation.  Fruits and vegetables depend on bees to pollinate their flowers or they don’t bear fruit.  The foods bees pollinate add the color and flavor to our diets–without their help, we’d only have grains and meats on our plates.

Unprecedented bee colony collapses have caused a 50% loss of the honeybee population in the last 50 years.  Throughout the world, reports of bee colony collapses have beekeepers and farmers worried about the future of our food.  How can Eco Warriors help solve the problem?

Be kind to bees and stop using pesticides.

One of the first lessons Enviro-Girl taught her sons was that a bee or wasp won’t bug you if you don’t bug them.  Stand still or move away–undisturbed, bees and wasps will go about their business of pollinating our food.  Start poking and swatting at them, you’re bound to get stung.  And while beesting allergies are serious, they account for about 400 human deaths per year–fewer than elephants, crocodiles, snakes, scorpions and mosquitoes cause.  Your chance of dying from beestings is 1 in 100,000.  Compare that to your odds of dying from cancer U.S. (1 in 7) or of heart disease (1 in 5).  Since bees help produce the food that prevent some of these larger threats to our mortality, it stands to reason that getting stung on occasion is a small discomfort by contrast.  Bottom line:  teach your children NOT to swat at bees.  Leave them alone and show them a little appreciation.

There is a huge link between the use of pesticides and colony collapse (the only dispute to scientific reports on the subject come from pesticide producers and agri-businesses who profit from their use).  By keeping the pesticides off of our plants and out of the air, we can help the bees recover.  Even Raid sprayed before an outdoor barbeque has the unfortunate side effect of killing everything flying around your yard–not just the mosquitoes.  Since the predators of mosquitoes (like spiders) take longer to reproduce, you end up with an imbalance in your backyard ecosystem–more mosquitoes and no spiders to help kill them–which leads to more mosquitoes and other pests and fewer of their natural predators–so by helping your situation for the short term, you’ve made it much worse for the long term.

By targeting your pest control to the areas that NEED it, you’ll reduce your use of pesticides and encourage helpful bugs to go about their business of nurturing our crops and soil.  Apply mosquito repellent to your body instead of to your entire backyard.  Buy food from organic farmers who do not use pesticides on their crops and fields.  Encourage biodiversity in your yard by putting up birdhouses and bat houses and let them take care of your pest problem for you.  Tell your neighbors to do the same.

Colony collapse is a serious problem facing a sustainable food supply.  It’s up to Eco Warriors everywhere to help solve it.