Bees. Many people are afraid of bees, yet see the benefits that they offer to our ecosystem. Many people have a lot of questions surrounding the species labeled 'bee'. There are about 25,000 species of bees worldwide. Which bees offer what benefits to which ecosystems? What exactly are the benefits of an insect that can sting someone and cause anaphylactic shock? In order for us to answer any of these questions, we need to delve into a few of the various species of bees. Within the 25,000 species of bees, they can be broken down into 4,000 types of bees and 7 'families'. In the United states, there are around 4,000 species of bees native to North America.
The Honey Bee
For example, the well-known honey bee isn't actually even native to North America. The honey bee is native to Asia. What does that mean for us and the honey bee? For the honey bee, it means that they were brought over by settlers to be domesticated in order to pollinate for agricultural reasons. However, for us, it means that our views of our native bees have been diminished. Honey bees do an amazing job pollinating our crops, flowers, and trees but their abilities are limited, believe it or not. For example, tomato plants: tomato plants require a specific type of pollination called buzz pollination. Honey bees do not have the ability to pollinate via buzz pollination and therefore cannot pollinate tomato plants. All of the tomatoes we eat in the United States are pollinated by native bees and bumble bees. I am not trying to bash on honey bees, but the focus of 'Save the Bees' has been focused highly on honey bees and it is imperative that we save more than just the naturalized honey bees. The ramification of saving only the honey bees means no more tomatoes and more bees needed to pollinate the amount we need because of the limited nature of the honey bee's pollination.
Native Bees
In the U.S. we have around 4,000 different species of native bees. Some of those bees belong in the Leafcutter, Mason, and Bumble bee families. Leafcutter and Mason bees are known as 'pollinator bees,' which is a fitting name. Native bees pollinate 10 times more than the naturalized Asian Honey Bee. Point towards native bees. In addition to pollinating more than the honey bee, most native bees are known as 'gentle bees' indicating that they have a tendency not to sting. The males in some of those species don't even have the ability to sting. In the rare case that they do sting, they do NOT cause anaphylactic shock. They are safe to handle, observe, and have around people who are allergic to bees.
The difference between these 'gentle bees' and bumble and honey bees are the fact that gentle bees are solitary bees. They do not have a colony and therefore have nothing to guard or protect. Their sole duty is to eat, procreate, and pollinate. It seems like native bees have the edge against honey bees, right? So why do we have honey bees and why are they the most well-known, most popular bees in our world? For starters, honey bees are what people typically think bees look like. Not all native bees look like what you imagine when you think of the word 'bee.' Some native bees, like in the image above with the mason bee, look much smaller than honey bees and seem to resemble a fly much more than a bee. Don't mistake their appearance, they will pollinate like crazy! Besides appearances, honey bees can be domesticated. That begs the question, how can they be domesticated? Honey bees have a queen and wherever that queen goes, the hive goes. The worker bees will follow the queen. If you can get a queen and move it to the location where you want the bees to pollinate and provide food and a home, you have a honey bee colony. Native bees don't have that ability to be domesticated because they are solitary and pollinate on their own. You can provide housing and food sources, but ultimately, the bees decide where to call home.
How Does This Affect Saving the Bees?
A majority of the rhetoric around 'Save the Bees' is primarily based on saving honey bee hives. That's great, the honey bee population is also dwindling due to pesticide use, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD,) and lack of food source. However, native bees are important too, perhaps even more important. So this brings us to the probable reason you clicked on this article at all: What can you do to save the bees? Save both the honey bees and native bees?
Steps You Can Take
First off, if you can afford it, buy organic produce.
I understand a lot of produce is expensive to buy organically. Why is it important to bees to buy organic? Well, the more that people buy organic, the higher the demand and therefor the supply should go up and the number of conventional farmers will go down and the amount of pesticide use will also decrease. Ideally, the price will go down as well. However, since at the moment organic products and produce is expensive, I try to stick to what's called the Dirty Dozen. The dirty dozen are the worst 12 produce to buy conventional because of the way pesticide seeps into the produce. The dirty dozen includes potatoes, apples, strawberries, celery, spinach, nectarines, peaches, pears, cherries, grapes, tomatoes, and bell peppers.
Maintain awareness of bee population (both native and honey bees)
Awareness is the first step in helping any problem, including this one. Keep up to date with the latest news regarding native and naturalized bees.
Provide food sources.
Make sure the food sources you provide are pesticide free and if you can help it, try to provide native food sources. You can easily find what plants are native by googling native plants and your location.
Fight against legislature that approves pesticides.
Many pesticides are only tested against adult stage bees and not bee larvae so when the adult bee pollinates a plant that has been sprayed with that pesticide, it brings the pesticide residue back to the colony and back to the larvae, killing them and causing CCD.
We CAN save the bees, but it's not just honey bees that need saving. Native bees need help too. They are so beneficial (not to mention adorable) and are in danger. Please help me Save the Bees.
Sources
Most of the information used to write this article was from the book Our Native Bees by Paige Embry, an amazing read with the coolest photos of native, naturalized, and non-native bees. The link to purchase it on amazon is below:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1604697695/ref=nosim?tag=22220fb-20