What’s the buzz about bees?
By David L. Sperling, Wisconsin Natural Resources
June 2009
Simple steps can bolster native bees and hedge our bets against honey bee declines.
A sustained drop in honey bee populations nationwide has farmers and orchardists making backup plans to ensure their crops are adequately pollinated. Buried among the stories about colony collapse disorder and
potential causes of bee die-offs — like stress, pesticides, pathogens and parasites — is some familiar advice. Just as a key to staving off invasive species is maintaining biological diversity, so too a key to keeping crops fruitful and flowers blooming is building up native bee populations.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Hey guys, this ‘CCD’ order is simply the bees dissapering, right? how do they dissapear?
For the last week now eveytime I go outside there is a bee on it’s back with it’s legs waving around and it can’t flip over. Sometimes when I find them they have no pollen on them and ants were begining to swarm and eat them.
Could other symptoms of CCD be Loss of balence, Direction problems, dizzyness, moter skills failing and death by the common ant that finds the confused bee on the ground?
I’m not finding one or two bees, i’m find 20 to 40 bees, I pick up every one I can and place them on flowers and trees to escape the horeds of hungry ants. Ants often cut up their prey and take it to the nest to be eaten, so that would explain why no bodys are found, the bodys are in pieces underground.
I don’t know how or why the bees fall but when they do, they don’t get up without help. I love to eat apples and no bees mean no green apples. Bees are very importen to the world and to people.
If this helps then i’ve done my good deed, if you need to know where I am finding the bees, I live in NW Arkansas, Springdale. I find them on sidewalks and roads everywhere. From the tiny honey bees to the huge bumble bees.
I do the best I can but it’s not enough.
~Ray Monya, The Red Sparrow.
July 30th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Great article! We have a small farm team and are starting a monthly newsletter. I would like to ask David Sperling if we could get permission to put the first paragraph in our newsletter and link to the rest of the article? Thanks so much for the information!
August 19th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Ray, what you are describing is possibly the result of pesticide use. Try to find out if someone in your area is spraying nasty pesicides and get them to stop and learn how to garden organically! You don’t say what kind of bee this is happening to, but bumblebees can forage up to a mile away from home, so you may have your work cut out for you.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:33 am
“I read the article in the MN Columteer and then went to the Xerces Web. I have currently 2 honey bee hives in the country and have seen solitary and bujble bees itc in my yard for years. I’m now National Wildlife Fed. Backyard Habitat Certified. I’ll keep going. Jane
November 12th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Bees – Ancient Friends
Petroglyph’s of humans gathering of honey have been found all over the world which leaves no doubt that the relationship between bees – honey and humans has been going on for thousands of years. Spain has many caves with drawings of bees and humans. Africa has the most numerous sites of petroglyphs of bees and honey hunters. Bees were often associated in these drawings with the animals considered to be sacred. India has hundreds of caves with paintings that show a special relationship with Bees and Man.
Buildings and living spaces were modeled after the detailed building of hives. Honey was used for food, preservation of other foods and for healing purposes. Scratched onto the surface of baked clay tablets are documented healing uses of honey found in the content of one of the oldest writings, the sacred Hindu books, compiled between 1500 and 500 BC.
At Barranc Fonda in eastern Spain there is a petroglyph of human honey hunters climbing a ladder leaning against a large tree. Floating as spirits around the hive are images of animals. In many of the drawings found all over the world the bee is revered as a spiritual being honored for the gifts of not only honey but wax and pollen used for a multitude of purposes. There is often a spiritual quality in ancient carvings and art that depicts a relationship between the bees and the humans.
I work on my house and yard every year as most of us do. The tediously rewarding work is nothing compared to the architectural wonders created by bees. The precision of the hive honeycombs has been mimicked in art and structural building since humans began documenting their reverence for bees in the form of cave paintings. The Egyptian carvings depict how hives were farmed by building coiled rope around the bottom of the hives adding pieces to bottom creating a perfectly round coiled hive that is often seen in characterization of bee hives in drawings and cartoons. The hive so meticulously created only to be carved away with hot knives by human hands.
The honey bee is an intellectual in the insect world. Unlike intellectuals in the human species who sit drinking latte’s discussing philosophy of life, honey bees live that life, busily as bees as the saying goes. Bees are under a tremendous pressure to survive based on the amount of nectar and pollen they collect to sustain their busy hive through the winter. From the most ancient of documented hunts, documented in drawings on cave walls, we find that Humans have hunted and harvested this precious nectar and pollen for their own use. A relationship that is as ancient as the first documented writings of humans.
Like humans- many bee species live lives of solitary isolation with small communities. Others live in New York or Los Angeles versions of ‘villages’ or hives. Why do some species nest in huge densities and others do not? The gathering of honey in ancient times was depicted as harvesting from large massive hives located in tall trees or high rock outcrops. The humans drawn as stick figures are shown climbing twisted twine ladders or ladders made from vines. These stick figures are sometimes waving torches billowing smoke to distract the bees while the human gathered the honey which documents the hunting methods for future generations. These ancient drawings became the template for the managed hives and honey gathering today.
It seems that in some of the species of solitary bees that live and nest in densities in the wild where they seem to only tolerate one another and choose to live and nest individually. The solitary bee species have a tendency to nest in areas that they were born in, much like the butterfly. The reason is simply that they are insuring the survival of the next generation by making sure they nest in the location of where they were born.
Butterflies reproduce after scouting out host plants for their pupae to live on before laying their eggs. Female bees initiate nests close to the place they were born. Perhaps these solitary type of wild bees will be the bee survivors. The managed hives of bees are mysteriously being wiped out by a something that we humans are doing. Since ancient times bees and humans have had a good relationship, we have managed to destroy that relationship and perhaps the bees in the process by our need to control nature.