They may sting but they are oh, so important!

Farmers and growers of all kinds rely on them for pollination of plants to produce crops. And don’t forget the delicious honey that they produce.

For quite some time now there has been a die-off of bees and we’re finally figuring out some, but not all of the reasons why.

According to Wikipedia “Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is an abnormal phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear, leaving behind a queen, plenty of food, and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees.”  This is a world-wide phenomenon.

When there are not enough native honey bees, the farmers have to rent bees.  Have you ever heard of renting bees?

It’s a huge business but again, there are large costs associated with this practice.  First, it is expensive and results in a significant increase in price of food crops for sale to us.  Second, it exhausts the bees
and causes more die-offs of controlled bee populations.

I was fortunate to attend a presentation on bees at the Sarasota Honey Company in Sarasota, Florida. They do not participate in this practice.   Renting bees has become a part of large-scale farming.  Bee hives are loaded on tractor trailers and taken to their next “job.”  The hives are set out and the bees find the local crops and pollenate them.  Once they are done, they are moved on to their next job. 

The issue is that in a normal situation, the bees pollenate the local crops (fruit trees, food crops, garden flowers, etc.) and then there is often down-time.  Plus the extent of their flying ability limits how many plants they attend to.  When they travel artificially, there is an endless amount of flowers to pollenate and the bees won’t stop until they’ve collected all the nectar they can.  They become weak and exhausted and become susceptible to parasites, weather and disease. When they travel, there is potentially more exposure to local
parasites, diseases, molds and fungus.

We have come to rely partly on Mason bees who have picked up some of the work left by the honey bees. Read next month’s article on Mason bees.