OUR BUSY BEES LOSE THEIR BUZZ

SOUTH Africa’s bees are overworked and underfed and if the situation is not remedied the country will face famine — never mind a shortage of honey.

“If bees don’t pollinate, food resources will diminish,” said Mike Miles, chairman of the South African Bee Industry Organisation. And as swarms disappear food prices will escalate and crops will shrink.

For the past 20 to 30 years the bee population has been in decline because of dwindling forage resources for them, changing weather patterns, widespread use of pesticides and the destruction of colonies by rogue bee removal and pest control companies.

Miles said the decline in bee populations would have a dire effect on food security because bees pollinated about 70% of the world’s food crops. He said all of the organisation’s members had reported declining numbers of bee colonies.

No other species plays a more significant role in producing the crops that humans commonly take for granted but require to stay alive.

Albert Einstein once said, “Mankind will not survive the honeybees’ disappearance for more than five years.”

Miles said South Africa needed to “drastically increase” the forage reserves of the bee population.

“Good food resources for bees means healthy bees. If blue gum plantations are cut down you are destroying the food resources that bees need in the seasons when they are not being used for pollination and honey production,” he said.

“We must ensure the proper application of pesticides on food crops to ensure that bees are not harmed.

“We need to grow our bee industry with good beekeeping practices and stop killing colonies of bees, especially wild bee or feral colonies, unnecessarily.”

Miles said South Africa imported two-thirds of its honey to meet demand and the low price of imported honey depressed local honey prices.

Mike Allsopp, senior research officer at the Agricultural Research Council, said South Africa at one time produced all of the honey it consumed and banned imports.

Now, 70% of honey was imported, almost all of it from China.

“The honey produced in other parts of the world is much cheaper than local honey. Some of the quality is good but some is not great,” Allsopp said. “Our beekeeping industry is under stress because our honey prices are artificially low. They are being dictated by imported honey prices, not by the local production price.

“The price of honey in South Africa is about 50% to 60% lower than what is being charged for quality honey in other parts of the world,” said Allsopp.

He said bees required a degree of natural habitat to be healthy.

“It seems more difficult to factory farm bees than it is to factory farm chickens. All the industrialised countries in the world are struggling to keep enough colonies in their natural, healthy state because of the change in landscape.

“The major impact on forage is urbanisation and landscape change. Another significant impact is agricultural development.”

Allsopp said the government needed to provide “tax rebates and incentive schemes for land users to plant and maintain forage”.

Beekeepers and Agri SA had recently discussed the establishment of a body to develop a South African pollination strategy, he said.

Nanike Esterhuizen, a PhD candidate at Stellenbosch University’s department of botany and zoology who is researching honey production in the Western Cape, said bees were overworked in honey production and pollination.

“Two-thirds of food gets produced with the help of bees. The bees are moved around frequently between farms to pollinate fruit and vegetables and that causes stress on the colonies. The demand for pollination is high and is increasing all the time because of the high demand in food production.

Mankind will not survive the honeybees’ disappearance for more than five years

“Bees are the most important pollinators for commercial crops. If we don’t do something about it now, it will be a crisis,” said Esterhuizen.

Roland Kennard, owner of Peel’s Honey in KwaZulu-Natal, said stands of Eucalyptus grandis, source of nectar and pollen for the majority of bee colonies, had not produced enough for the past four years.

“The amount of honey produced has been drastically dwindling over the past four years and this year has been the worst season we have experienced.

“The drought has had a greater effect than any disease. The good quality honey has gone up significantly. The price of saligna, the creamed honey, has increased 30% in the past year,” he said.

Craig Campbell, chairman of the KwaZulu-Natal Bee Farmers Association, said theft, vandalism and the drought had slashed production. “My production is down 80% and although prices have gone up a fair bit, it has not been enough.” Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.sundaytimes.co.za