The past week found me back in school learning about both bees and digital marketing at Ohio State’s annual Short Course for nursery and landscape professionals where classes are given on a variety of industry topics. What I learned was both mind-blowing and frightening.
No, there is not a wave of African bees poised just across the Ohio River ready to chase us all inside but yes, if you have had this uneasy feeling that you are being watched while surfing the internet, you are.
Digital marketing, though perhaps a new subject for the Short Course, is not an unusual focus because it’s about business.
Bees on the other hand is an unusual focus because though they are present in our working environment, they are not our business in the sense that they are not plants; however, from what I learned this week it’s time we made them our business in the sense that we’re really messing them up.
Bees are incredible creatures and I learned there are a lot more of them than I thought–over 25,000 different species worldwide, in fact. I also learned that those big bumble bees that buzz you in the spring, that sometimes bring out my inner child in me, apoplectic and arms flailing…well, they have no stinger. It’s all a bluff, and they’re just protecting their territory. They’re just hanging out, waiting to impress the ladies.
What really blew my mind though was the fact that bumble bees can sense whether a flower has been recently visited by another bee. That’s an important piece of information because it means the nectar well is dry for the moment so the bee knows not to waste her time, and yes it is probably a her because in the bee world, it ain’t a man’s world. In a honey bee colony of 60,000 bees, the males number only in the hundreds. Their sole purpose is servicing the queen.
Despite their diversity and numbers, bees are having a tough time. There are four species of bumble bees native to Ohio that are near extinction, and honey bees are really struggling, afflicted by all kinds of things including Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which the adult bees just vanish without a trace.
Why should we care?
For one thing, I can’t imagine a garden without them, but I also can’t imagine no apples, no peaches, no watermelons, no almonds, no cashews, not to mention no honey. The whole list of food we would lose is long, and commercial beekeepers, the ones who rent out their hives for pollinating crops, have for the past seven years been reporting annual losses in the 30-35% range which they say is not sustainable. California’s Almond crop alone requires 1.6 million beehives to pollinate all the trees.
One reason for the decline is loss of habitat. Bees need both nectar and pollen to survive and make honey. As we claim more and more land for our houses, and more and more land for our corn and soybean, bees are finding it hard to make ends meet. That is why it is important for us to think about providing food for them when planting our gardens.
The other big reason is pesticides, and that is the reason bees were on the program for the Short Course. As an industry we use pesticides, a lot of them. Yes, these pesticides have been rigorously tested to see what the lethal dose is for various organisms including ourselves; however, what bee researchers are finding out is that sublethal doses, when added to the many other stressors the modern bee faces, can be deadly too.
It was an eye-opening week, and it made me realize that not only is it important that we as an industry take immediate steps to address this issue, but that we as a people see it as wake-up call. What is happening to the bees could very well be happening to us. What kind of sublethal doses are we ingesting?
We need to change our way of thinking. If not for the bees, then for us and our children. I plan to start by lowering my expectations for my landscape and my food to be unblemished. As my Dad said to me once when I found ants crawling on my slice of watermelon. “Don’t worry, they don’t eat much.”
For more information on the plight of the honey bee, go here.
For more information on creating gardens for pollinators, learn more here.
“It was an eye-opening week, and it made me realize that not only is it important that we as an industry take immediate steps to address this issue, but that we as a people see it as wake-up call.”
