Last night PBS ‘s “NATURE” series re-ran its documentary, “Silence of the Bees,” about the research being done to better understand CCD, or colony collapse disorder, and the world-wide effects of the disease. CCD is the name given to the still mysterious set of infections/viruses/parasites that are responsible for, or at least play a role in, the massive decline in honey bee populations over the past several years.
Interviews with researchers and academics, as well as farmers, from around the world present an in-depth picture of the potential causes and the agricultural effects of CCD. Although “Silence of the Bees” was produced in 2007, the NATURE Web site also has updated information on the ongoing research. If you haven’t seen the film you can also view it, in its entirety, on the NATURE site by clicking here.
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Honey Bee Pollinating a Wildflower
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Gathering Pollen on a Globe Thistle
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In addition producing honey and ensuring our fields & roadsides are filled with wildflowers, honey bees are most importantly responsible for pollinating nearly one third of the farm crops in the US. While there are other “pollinators” like butterflies and other species of bees, honey bees have born the bulk of the pollinating responsibility. Without honey bees, flowering crops dependent on pollination to produce fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts, would fail. Not only would the variety of foods we eat would diminish substantially but the economic impact would be in the billions of dollars.
How We Can Help
One of the best ways to help support the honey bee population is to start keeping bees in your back yard, garden or community garden like this one that was featured here a couple of weeks ago. Back yard & community garden hives help to add new, healthy local bees into the honey bee gene pool and provide pollinating support to larger nearby hives.
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Honey Bee Hive
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If the back yard hive idea is a little too much, the next best thing is to add “bee friendly” plants to your flower and vegetable gardens. This is really easy to do and it’s a great justification for going back to the nursery to buy more plants!
Bees prefer flowering plants that produce blossoms over the course of two or more seasons (spring/summer or summer/fall) like hydrangea, hosta, daisy, black-eyed susans, sunflower, day lily, and coreopsis. They also prefer large patches of flowers – probably a more efficient way to gather pollen – that are more wild than cultivated in layout. And finally, bees like diversity – so give them a lot to choose from!
For the vegetable garden, bees like squash, tomato, pea, and bean plants. They also like flowering trees like peach, cherry and apple.
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Honey Bee on a Hosta Flower
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You can find more information on ways to help the honey bee population survive, as well as updates on the latest research and resources on the NATURE site.
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