Today we are going to talk about bees and pollinators!
It has been estimated that bees pollinate more than 1/3 of the plants we eat! Most fruits and veggies, nuts, herbs, species, oil crops, etc.
In total bees pollinate up to 80% of the plants on the planet!
In the past 30 years the bee population has suffered a decline of 25% globally (up to 90% in certain areas!). The decline has been particularly massive in the last five years. Major causes are habitat destruction, pesticides, light pollution and climate change.
Intensive farming, with the planting of large monocultures, is a major driver behind the loss of wildflower meadows. Also, many agricultural industries run on chemicals which can take years to decay and ravage the bee populations on which they depend for pollination.
To compensate for the loss of the native wild bees, managed honey bees, often less effective than the native species, are being used to prop up intensive agriculture. In order to meet a growing need for crop pollination, honeybees are being frantically replicated and shifted around, also to artificially planted fields in areas otherwise unable to sustain such life (deserts). Tricking the bees into working harder, earlier and in hostile environments leads to heavy bee losses, caused by a lethal combination of poor nutrition, parasites, which weaken bees and spread disease, and pesticides.
Even if honey bees were healthy, it’s risky to rely so much on a single bee species, as it’s predictable that parasites will target the one species we have in these monocultural crop fields.
Intensive farming, with the quest of producing ever more food, results in habitat destruction, the loss of wildflower meadows, the spraying of pesticides and planting of large monocultures, in turn damaging the bee population which are crucial for pollination.
Many agricultural industries run on chemicals, among them neonicotinoids which take years to decay naturally and ravage bee health. In particular they stick around best in fatty substances, such as honeycombs
Wild bees vs managed honeybees
Wild bees are suffering from loss of flowering habitat, pesticides and climate crisis
Honeybees are heavily breeded, and risk being assailed by diseases.
Even if honey bees were healthy, it’s risky to rely so much on a single bee species. It’s predictable that parasites will target the one species we have in these monocultural crop fields.
Wild bees are often more effective pollinators than honeybees but several species are in sharp decline.
Swaths of American agriculture are propped up by honeybees, frantically replicated and shifted around the country in hives in order to meet a growing need for crop pollination. By making the landscape uninhabitable for native wild bees, farmers have become increasingly reliant on managed European honeybees to pollinate, even when these bees are less adapted to the flowers.
Managed honey bees are shifted around on one hand to compensate for the loss of wild bees, and on the other to artificially planted fields in areas otherwise unable to sustain such life (deserts). Tricking the bees into working harder, earlier and in places other than where nature intended, leads to heavy bee losses, caused by a lethal combination of poor nutrition,
parasites, which weaken bees and spread disease, and pesticides. In the US, around 1/3 of bees have to be restocked each year because of such heavy losses.
Further readings:
- Light pollution is a driver of insect declines, A. C. S. Owens et al. - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320719307797?via%3Dihub