6 minute read
Bees under siege
It is well chronicled that bees are facing a relentless assault, primarily at the hand of humans. The introduction of invasive species and the use of pesticides are among the major factors contributing to the demise of our beloved bees. Considering that over 75 percent of the world’s food sources rely on bees, the spectre of their extinction looms large and is certainly worthy of our urgent attention.
Online petitions to change governmental regulations have shone a spotlight on the insidious threat to bees posed by neonicotinoids. These chemicals are either coated on seeds or sprayed on soil, where they are absorbed by growing plants. As a result, the entire plant, including its pollen, nectar, and fruit, becomes toxic, and although initially designed to target “pest” insects, neonicotinoids indiscriminately devastate bees, butterflies, and other wildlife. Since their introduction in the 1990s, neonicotinoids have made US agriculture nearly 50 times more harmful to insect life. Although studies have revealed their detrimental impact on honeybees’ learning and memory abilities, scientists are urging regulators to acknowledge the risks the often-overlooked solitary bees face.
Because whilst honeybees are renowned for their industriousness and often take centre stage, it is the solitary bees like carpenter bees that not only often surpass them in pollination prowess but also in numbers, with honeybees representing a minuscule percentage of bees worldwide. Thankfully, efforts are underway to make amends. Several countries, including the EU, have banned neonicotinoids, although in many, such as the US, China and India, they are still widely used. The alternatives may be slightly less harmful, but the perfect solution is yet to be found, prompting a growing interest in organic farming.
And in an ironic twist, some of our other attempts to make amends have unintentionally caused more harm than good. While keeping honeybees can undoubtedly be beneficial in places like Antigua & Barbuda where native bees are absent, in some regions, improper management, particularly by amateur beekeepers, can pose a significant threat to local bee populations.
The recent surge in backyard beekeeping, driven by a noble desire to increase bee numbers to help the environment (and enjoy the delicious honey they produce), has unfortunately had disastrous consequences for local bees in some parts of the globe, which were already struggling to find sufficient food sources in our increasingly developed world. Although this is certainly not the case everywhere, this has led to overpopulation in places such as London, which boasts the densest honeybee populations in Europe, if not the world. Research indicates that London can sustain approximately seven hives per square kilometre, yet it currently harbours over 50, with some areas hosting a staggering 400 hives per square kilometre. However, this problem is not confined to urban areas alone; even in some rural regions in Europe, honeybees and native bees often compete for scarce nectar and pollen sources, exacerbating competition.
As a domesticated species, honeybees cannot be the panacea for all pollination issues. Dr Lucy Witter, a UK-based entomologist and farm wildlife advisor, said in a recent interview with Sky News, “One of my biggest bugbears is people getting honeybees to help pollinators generally. It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘We need to save wild birds, so let’s get some chickens.’”
Because whilst honeybees are renowned for their industriousness and often take centre stage, it is the solitary bees like carpenter bees that not only often surpass them in pollination prowess but also in numbers, with honeybees representing a minuscule percentage of bees worldwide.
The single most effective way for individuals to aid bees is simply to plant flowers. Manicured parks and decked gardens often cannot sustain bee populations sufficiently. Filling your garden with bee-friendly flowers, refraining from removing flowering “weeds”, and making a “bee hotel” out of lengths of bamboo or hollow plant stems are all easy but effective ways to help our tiny friends.
Fortunately, in the lush and verdant Antigua & Barbuda where nature is abundant, a wide variety of flowering plants and trees like the hibiscus, ixora, coconut, guava, mango and ackee provide a veritable bee paradise. Here, where there are no native species to compete with the honeybee, which was introduced to the islands in the late 18th century by colonists, these creatures play an extremely positive role in creating sustainable food and agriculture systems without experiencing the negatives faced in other regions. While native hummingbirds, butterflies and other insects serve as islands’ native pollinators, the careful management of hives in the twin islands ensures that there are enough flowers and nectar for all.
Although formal beekeeping in Antigua & Barbuda began in the 1980s, it is still relatively small scale. Beyond its benefits for food security, beekeeping provides an economic advantage to the islands due to a wide range of value-added by-products, such as honey, wax, royal jelly and even cosmetics and soaps. With most commercially available honey being produced on an industrial scale and subjected to pasteurisation, which removes many of honey’s essential properties, many individuals, including the local Rastafarian community, are becoming involved in beekeeping to ensure a healthier, organic honey option for their diet – whilst making a little extra income to boot.
Despite facing challenges like Hurricane Irma in Barbuda in 2017, which decimated many of the hives, and the varroa mite, which threatened honeybees in Antigua in the early 2000s, new apiarists are being trained by the Antigua & Barbuda Beekeepers Cooperative Facility, ensuring a sweet future for the islands’ bees and protecting our world and food sources for generations to come.
A buzzing insight into the honeybee hive
• A beehive can house 20,000 to 80,000 bees.
• Bee colonies have a queen, drones and worker bees.
• Worker bees, accounting for 99% of the hive population, are infertile females tasked with collecting nectar and converting it into honey.
• Bees collect nectar from flowers and transform it into honey through regurgitation and enzymatic activity.
• Worker bees secrete beeswax to build hexagonal cells called a “comb” to store honey and pollen and raise young.
• Drones are male bees in the hive whose sole purpose is to mate with the queen and contribute to the colony’s genetic diversity.
• The queen bee is the only fertile female in the hive responsible for laying eggs, ensuring the colony’s survival and growth.
• Royal jelly is a substance fed exclusively to the queen bee, enabling her reproductive development.
• When the queen bee dies, worker bees raise a new queen by selecting a young larva and feeding it royal jelly.
• Bees regulate hive temperature by adjusting their metabolic rate or fanning their wings. During the brood season, the temperature is maintained around 32-35ºC.
• Overcrowded hives may swarm, with thousands of bees leaving to establish new colonies. Beekeepers manage populations by splitting hives or replacing the queen bee when she nears the end of her reproductive life.
• Beekeepers smoke hives to calm bees. The smoke makes bees think there’s a fire nearby, so they gorge on honey and become less likely to sting due to their full abdomens.
