Colony Collapse Threatens The Future of Food

By Beth Buczynski on April 12, 2010 From Restoration campaign

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” Albert Einstein

Although they’re rarely more than an inch or two in length, the sound of a single buzzing bee in the yard can send grown adults running for cover. Terrified of their sting, we’ve treated bees like tiny terrorists when we should actually be honoring their presence.

The truth is that without those “pesky” bees, your backyard barbeque wouldn’t be possible. Beef cattle, onions, hothouse tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, watermelons and even avocados all depend on the bee’s unique style of pollination in order to grow and thrive. So even though it might seem like they’re crashing the party, bees are really just doing their job.

Although the thankless work of the honey bee is responsible for over one-third of all food crops (as well as everything from trees to flowers), the USDA reports that bee populations in the U.S. declined by over 29 percent in 2009 alone. If losses continue at this rate the only foods we’ll be left with are grains and water.

So what’s happening to the bees?

Scientists point to something called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), an affliction that’s killing off commercial honey bee colonies across the United States. As research slowly works to unravel this affliction, it has been shown that pesticide use, climate change, and monoculture agriculture have joined forces in a perfect storm that seems destined to destroy honey bee populations faster than they can be replaced.

Most of the research thus far has focused on the decline of commercial or agricultural bee populations, but they aren’t the only ones responsible for pollination. Rural farmers have depended on the work of native or wild bee colonies to propagate their crops for decades, and although they’ve become less common thanks to mass pesticide use, it’s possible they could pick up some of the slack in the wake of colony collapse disorder.

In 2008, researchers at San Francisco State University started The Great Sunflower Project as a way to enlist citizen scientists in gathering information about urban, suburban and rural bee populations, and the impact that CCD has had on pollination in general.

As the basis for this investigation into the not-so-secret lives of wild bees, project researchers point to studies showing that in the absence of honey bee populations, native bees can sometimes provide pollination services for entire crops.

Karen Ma, a landscape designer from Connecticut participated in The Great Sunflower Project for the first time in 2009. After receiving her seeds in the mail, she was able to grow over 15 sunflowers, and had a great time observing the winged visitors they attracted to her property.

“I only had two types of bees visit last year: the honey bee and the carpenter bee,” Ma said. “I was surprised to learn I did not have any bumble bees in my count, as they were the bees I remembered most from my childhood. I was curious enough to look into their absence, and it saddened me to learn that our lifestyle has significantly impacted their populations.”

Now, Ma says that when clients request flowers as part of their landscaping design, she stops to consider which would be most attractive from the bees’ point of view.

Concerned citizens like Ma might be the best chance for both native and commercial honey bees to regain some much needed habitat, as a renewed interest in urban beekeeping seems to be popping up all over the country.

Just last month, New York City’s board of health voted to lift a ban against beekeeping, legalizing hundreds of hives kept by brave residents who, up until now, have tended them in defiance of the law. Beekeeping clubs in NYC boast over 600 combined members. Thanks to the Great Pollinator Project, sponsored by The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History and the Greenbelt Native Plant Nursery, they are likely to grow rapidly.

Instead of asking citizens to plant their own sunflowers to attract bees, participants in the Great Pollinator Project are instructed to go out and find one of the 12 flowers approved by the project and observe it for 30 minutes each day, recording the number and type of bees that land on the flower during that time. Participants are often surprised to learn that more than 200 species of bees live in New York City.

But you don’t have to be a member of a citizen science project to lend a hand. Planting a pollinator friendly habitat can turn a ho-hum yard into an urban oasis for all types of bees, and using the handy eco-regional guides published by The Pollinator Partnership is a great way to discover which plants will grow best in your corner of the United States.

You can also become fan of the Pollinator Partnership on Facebook and follow their tweets on Twitter.

This was Colony Collapse Threatens The Future of Food, an entry in our Restoration Campaign from April 12, 2010. It was filed under Rangeland

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