Save The Honeybees: Flats

8/17/2019 Save The Honeybees: Flats

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Save the honey beesCreating an oasis for bees and other pollinators


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“The reason for [colony Collapse Disorder] may be morecomplex and disconcerting.”

Scientists have been trying to discover why millions ofbeehives have collapsed and died during the past six years.

The reason for the phenomenon - known as Colony Col-lapse Disorder - according to a new study, may be much

more complex and disconcerting. Dozens of dierent typesof chemicals may be combining to wreak havoc on the pol-len that the bees collect for their hives.

CCD has killed o more than 10 million beehives in NorthAmerica since 2007 alone. Scientists have tried repeatedlyto identify the root cause for the beehive collapses, ranging

from certain classes of pesticides to parasites or nutrition.

So academic researchers from the University of Maryland

and federal scientists from the Department of Agriculturedecided to collect pollen from seven major types of crops

along the East Coast where CCD has been especially de-structive - where bees had been in serious decline – and fed

them to healthy bees.


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The pollen fed to the healthy bees contained an averageof nine dierent types of pesticides and fungicides. Onepollen sample had 21 dierent chemicals.

The researchers discovered that the healthy bees that

ate the fungicides – which are supposedly harmless tobees – were actually three times more likely to become

infected with a parasite that’s known to cause ColonyCollapse Disorder, according to the study in PLOS One,an open access journal.

What the study also indicated is that there may not be

a single cause of the collapse of bee colonies in NorthAmerica – it could be a complex web of many chemicalsthat involves dierent types and classes of pesticidesand fungicides.

Fungicides are used to control things like fungus on ap-ples, and weren’t expected to have an impact on healthy

bees. But according to the study, healthy bees that atesuch fungicides were much more likely to become infect-ed with a deadly parasite. So USDA may need to change

the way it regulates the use of such fungicides aroundthese crops and the bee colonies that pollinate them,

and change the way it advises farmers and beekeepersabout the use of such fungicides.

Likewise, if CCD is linked to the complex array of chemi-cals in pollen, it will make it vastly more dicult to pro-tect bee colonies – not to mention the implications forother forms of life subjected to this complex set of chem-

icals that make their way into the food web or environ-ment.

And to make things even more complicated, the researchers

found that the healthy bees they sampled had mostly for-aged from weeds and wildowers – not crops – meaning thatbees in general across North America are likely much moreexposed to pesticides than previously thought.

More research is needed about “how honey bees are ex-posed to pesticides outside the eld in which they areplaced. We detected 35 dierent pesticides in the samplepollen, and found high fungicide loads,” the authors wrotein PLOS One. “Our results highlight a need for research onsub-lethal eects of fungicides and other chemicals thatbees in an agricultural setting are exposed to.”

CCD isn’t just about the bees – food crops and agriculture

economies are aected too. Because bee populations are solow in the United States, for instance, the surviving coloniesare working overtime to pollinate crops in California and

elsewhere. More than $30 billion worth of crops in the U.S.could be seriously at risk if the continuing die o of honey-bees were to reach critical levels.

While the researchers were careful not to directly link the

complex web of pesticides found in the pollen samplesdirectly to Colony Collapse Disorder, the inference is hard to

ignore.

It’s also just common sense. Something has been causingCCD in dierent parts of North America, and it would makesense that chemicals designed to kill certain things like pests

or weeds might also have unintended consequences whencombined and spread outside crops.

“it’s just common sense.”


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The solution could be as simple as labeling fungicides thatkill fungus on apples, for instance. But it could also be vastly

more complicated, and involve tighter regulation of theregions and instances where dierent sets of chemicals areused in and around crops pollinated by honeybee colonies.

Right now, for instance, pesticide labels tell farmers not to

spray when bees are known to be pollinating, but those reg-ulations don’t apply to the chemicals used to kill fungus on

the crops and were thought to be harmless to bees.

But one nding from the study that beekeepers should con-sider right away is that simply looking at the types of chemi-cals used on crops may simply not be enough.

“Our results show that beekeepers need to consider not onlypesticide regimens of the elds in which they are placingtheir bees, but also spray programs near those elds thatmay contribute to pesticide drift onto weeds,” the authors

wrote. “The bees in our study collected pollen from diversesources, often failing to collect any pollen from the target

crop.”

And the study also points out what we don’t know, and need

to study more closely. “Given the diverse routes of exposureto pesticides we show, and increasing evidence that pesti-

cide blends harm bees,” the authors wrote, “there is a press-ing need for further research on the mechanisms underlying

pesticide-pesticide and pesticide-disease synergistic eectson honey bee health.”


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Rethink your lawn.

More and more gardeners are anxious to do their part tohelp the bees by adding to the shrinking inventory of ow-er-rich habitat in their area. You can create a ‘bee garden’.In return, the bees will pollinate your owers, providing abountiful harvest of fruits, seeds and vegetables as well asthe joy of watching them up close.

Rethink your lawn. Replace part or all of your front lawngrass with owering plants, which provides food and hab-itat for honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees, butteriesand other pollinators. Select single-ower plants for yourgarden, such as daisies and marigolds, rather than doubleower tops such as double impatiens. Double headed ow-ers look showy but produce much less nectar and make it

much more dicult for bees to access pollen. Skip highlyhybridized owers, which have been bred not to seed andthus produce very little pollen for bees.


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Leave a patch of the garden in a sunny spot uncultivated for na-tive bees that burrow. Some native bees also need access to soil

surface for nesting. For wood- and stem-nesting bees, this meanspiles of branches, bamboo sections, hollow reeds, or nesting

blocks made out of untreated wood. Mason bees need a source ofwater and mud, and many kinds of bees are attracted to weedy,

untended hedgerows.

Avoid using herbicides or pesticides in the bee garden. They not

only can be toxic to bees but also are best not introduced tochildren or adults that visit your garden. Ladybugs, spiders, and

praying mantises will naturally keep pest populations in check.

Bees need a place to get fresh, clean water. Fill a shallow con-tainer of water with pebbles or twigs for the bees to land on whiledrinking. Make sure to maintain the container full of fresh water

to ensure that they know they can return to the same spot everyday.

Even if you live in a place with no garden, you can still help. Youneed only a small plot of land—it can even be a window container

or rooftop—to create an inviting oasis for bees. Every little bit canhelp to nurture bees and other pollinators.

Save The Honeybees: Flats

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