A calamity not to bee- little
The world’s honey bees are dying in large numbers – with profound implications.
AS a child, I often saw bees around the many flowers in our garden. We lived in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, not far from Jalan Tun Razak, one of the city’s busiest streets, but we still saw bees. The bees had their own business, and we minded our own business, so nobody ever got stung.
Today, my mother still has flowers in her garden in a city suburb, but we never see bees.
This is one of the great tragedies of our planet today. The world’s honey bees are dying in great numbers, with losses of half of bee colonies in some areas in recent years. American beekeepers lost 42% of their colonies between April 2014 and 2015, according to an annual survey by the Bee Informed Partnership. In Europe, nearly one in 10 bees are threatened with extinction, says a study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
This “Bee- pocalypse” has profound implications. Many common foods depend on pollination by bees. About 70 of the top 100 human food crops – which supply about 90% of the world’s nutrition – are pollinated by bees, Greenpeace notes in its Save The Bees report.
Honey bees do most of the work of pollination on the planet. Just one bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers a day. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that honeybees add more than US$ 15bil to the value of crops per year. Here, the value of pollination services of stingless bees is estimated at nearly US$ 20mil, according to research by Mardi.
Mardi successfully introduced two species of stingless bees which, being local, are more pest- resistant. Plus, they produce more medicinal honey. Its strategic resource research centre director Dr Mohd Norowi Hamid stressed the value of bees as pollinators, adding that the decline here was not as severe but of concern, nevertheless.
“If there’s no bees, there’s no food,” he said. “Without bees, we can only last four years.” Watermelon, durian, coconut, mango, starfruit, and guava are among fruits that need bees.
Given the scale and potential impact of the problem, you would think most governments are scrambling to respond. But no. My friend Aminah, a drama teacher, faced this problem when she tried to highlight the issue for a school play here. The problem is also complex, and tied up with this huge ecological mess we’ve created from intensified farming practices, indiscriminate use of killer pesticides, loss of natural habitats, and global warming.
Still, some measures can be taken. We can ban the use of insecticides that hurt bees. Neonicotinoids are routine- ly used – at a whopping cost of US$ 2.6bil per year – despite evidence that their harm far exceeds presumed benefits. These insecticides are systemic, which means they enter into the plant, and later the pollen.
Neonicotinoids damage bees’ immune systems, their foraging and learning ability as well as increase their mortality. They have been linked to the rise in bees “disappearing” after feeding trips. Bees are losing their way home. Neonicotinoids may not kill immediately, but they destroy insidiously. They also affect earthworms which lose the ability to tunnel, and dragonflies which feed on mosquitoes. Perhaps due to weaker immune systems, bees are also dying in large numbers from para- sitic diseases such as the mite Varroa destructor.
In 2013, the European Union banned neonicotinoids. Last month, British prime minister David Cameron lifted the ban on the blacklisted insecticides. In June, US President Barack Obama set up a task force to help stop the decline of bees, and ordered an assessment of neonicotinoids, but failed to impose any ban.
Another reason for the decline in bees is the loss of habitat – flowering meadows, in the case of bees. Many meadows of wild flowers in Europe and the grasslands in the American prairies have been turned into cereal fields, in part to feed animals to be killed for meat.
By simply growing more flowers, we can help bees. In a world where much is wrong and seemingly beyond our control, growing the flowers bees love is one way to make a difference. In life, we need time to smell the roses. And we can save some bees in the process.