Our Bees are in trouble, What is wrong?
Just a brief glimpse at the state of things
Honey bees are thought to have risen in excess of 100 million years ago. The honey bees around us now (Apini descendants) have evolved over the last 30 million years and have lived side by side with humans since we evolved less than 2 million years ago. All was well until about 70 years ago. A growing population began to bring change in farming practices worldwide. In the UK we lost many thousands of miles of hedgerows as small fields became larger fields and those in to still larger fields. Added to this is Monoculture was introduced which is to say that all of the different crops in those smaller fields were replaced with one crop and this is the Achilles Heel of modern farming practice. You see, all of those different fields supported diverse species all working together in harmony and preventing broad scale disease and pestilence, all thorough natural process and predation. With all of this life gone, a simple disease can ravage a crop as can an unchallenged insect. The farming industry fought back for decades with pesticides progressively destroying the biodiversity we evolved with. Farmers are slowing up with this a little now, but GM crops are the focus and the pest defence is engineered in to the plant. Good for the crop and the supply chain of that crop – but only that crop.
So where is the honey bee on all of this? She isn’t! All Grasses are wind pollinated so massive fields of corn, wheat, barley etc are a baron wilderness to the honey bee, and with the the many miles corridors of wild hedgerows gone, all hope of recolonisation by the honey bee along the with most other insects is gone also.
The tide is turning, incredibly slowly. Farmers are now offered Gov incentives to have wild flower margins and there is growing interest in more organic methods to replace needless, and very expensive chemical usage, but much more action is urgently needed. We need to pressure local authorities to cease needless costly weekly practice of mowing broad verges and unused areas of parkland to let wildflowers re-establish, also to encourage all landowners to reintroduce indigenous mixed hedgerows along with excavating the many thousands ponds that have been filled-in over the past 70 years.
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Damage is not only caused by farming practices, there are also domestic issues to address. To step away from pollinators for a moment, just look at a practice that can only be seen as ironic national idiocy concerning the now critical decline of the hedgehog. In the main being due to gardeners poisoning their food source with slug pellets. The irony being that if we all support hedgehogs, they would be sufficient in number to deal with the constant garden mollusc invasion for free, you'd also be avoiding needless cash expense! Back to insect loss, many dog owners do not realise that the flea control fluid that they trickle on their dogs back every few months is in fact an insecticide, and a very potent one at that. Probably imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid. You may be aware that neonicotiniods were recently subject to a European Union ban on use in flowering crops. These flea treatments cause broad scale death of insects everywhere a dog treated by this method goes, be that rolling in the grass, moving around bushes, through hedges or splashing around in a puddle, the effect will likely last months. A swim in a river will surely have dire consequences to all insect life in, or drinking from the infected water for some miles until it becomes weakened by dilution. Let's not forget cats here, they don't move around with us as dogs do, but they have a home range they patrol daily in which they doubtless destroy much insect life along with the flea issue you were addressing with the fluid trickled on their back. Mankind has a profound impact on the natural world, we all need to make informed, considered decisions when obtaining any chemical based product or we each risk contributing to the destruction of the ecology of our world.
What can you do as just one individual? Far more than you might think - With little expense.
You can make really easy changes in your own garden. Just a little thought can make a massive difference. Here are just two thoughts; Doubles and Dandelions.
How many ‘Double Bloom’ plants do you buy? These are no good to bee’s, they didn’t evolve – Doubles are a creation of the horticulturist. They can’t reproduce as they can’t be pollinated due to the overgrowth of petals. So how about buying 2 singles for the bees at the same time that you indulge yourself to each gorgeous double?
One of the best nectar producers are loathed by gardeners and this is the humble Dandelion. Left alone, it is a spring flower, but regular cutting causes it to show it's determination to reproduce and it will deliver nectar into the summer. We will never be dandelion free so let’s embrace it and have a dandelion patch in every garden!
With a little thought, you’ll discover that there’s lot’s you can do as an individual and collectively we’ll make a difference.
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How about changing the way you think about gardening, what do you need from your garden?
All of that lawn you might have does nothing for honey bees or any other pollinator. How about Wilding it? Turn some into a wild area simply by not mowing it. The 'Meadow' look will come in time by mowing twice a year. To eradicate lawn grasses and develop a natural looking meadow takes much planning, effort and cost in seeds, but if you want to retain a semblance of lawn then consider adopting a Three Week rotation of mowing and let those dandelions flourish. Simply cut just a third of it in rotation. There will always be an area useable by your family, and flowering dandelions. You will be surprised what other wild flowers you have that have been trying to show through for many years. A wild lawn with neatly mown meandering pathways can become very attractive in it's own right. Making a wildflower area in an existing flower bed is easier than transforming lawn and there are many specific seed mixes to choose from. Whichever you choose, lawn or flower bed, the rules to success are the same. No fertiliser, Chop it all down late August. Remove all of the cuttings within a few weeks once the seeds have dropped out.
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Every garden needs a pond because every garden needs insects and insects need water.
Introduce a pond into your garden and you'll introduce a whole new set of visitors. Once established your pond will become a breeding ground for many amphibians all eager to take on slugs before they are large enough to destroy your planting scheme, you'll also have damsel flies emerging in the summer to assist in predation of pests. Honey bees need access to a reliable water supply too, they can't survive without it
The definition of a weed is; A plant in the wrong place. For the hard-working honey bee, any flowering plant she finds is most certainly in the right place!
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