They’re weird
fuzzy
and in a lot of trouble.
These insects are actually all
bees – wild ones. And they’re debatably more important than
the honey-making kind.
People are really worried about bees:
“We will take the plight of the honey bee for granted at our own peril.”
But what most people don’t know:
Honeybee numbers are increasing worldwide.
Not just that, but the way humans use honeybees makes them a problem.
Putting a honeybee hive in your backyard doesn’t help.
Because we are saving the wrong bees.
Animals are involved in the pollination of 90% of the world’s flowering plants.
And when you think of pollinators, the honeybee probably comes to mind.
That’s because honeybees and humans have an ancient relationship.
Bees have been managed for thousands of years.
“There's a lot of evidence that they played an important role also in the ancient
cultures in Egypt and Greece,
so beekeeping has always been very widespread.”
Axel is the chair of the Invertebrate Conservation Committee at the IUCN.
Honeybees are native to Asia, Europe, and Africa, but nowadays are everywhere
except Antarctica.
Apis mellifera is the most common honeybee and the best-studied,
although there are another 10 known species.
They are general pollinators, meaning they will pollinate most plants.
And although honeybees are at risk from pests and disease, the number of colonies
worldwide is actually growing.
According to the FAO, managed hives have increased worldwide by 83% since 1961.
“Because they are always managed by the beekeepers and also receive veterinary
treatment and so on, there's no risk that they will become extinct.”
But honeybees aren’t the only bees.
“The general public confounds bees with the honey bee.”
This is Isabelle a pollination ecology researcher
specializing in urban environments.
“It would be the same situation if, for example, you were talking about birds and
people think that when you talk about birds, you talk about chicken.”
There are around 20,000 different species of wild bees,
and they are the most important wild pollinators.
They’re mostly solitary, and unlike honeybees are suited
to specific plants, which makes them much better at pollinating.
A hectare of apples, for example, would require tens of thousands of honeybees to
pollinate, but only hundreds of
this wild bee – because
“Osmia Cornuta” is particularly good at apple pollination.
“Each flowering plant is strongly connected to a pollinator that fits
accordingly to the lock and key principle.”
An entomologist by training, Sabrina is a project manager at the
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture.
“This perfect fit between flower and its selected pollinator is the product of an
ongoing co-evolution for centuries that is still operating.”
Like the squash bees native to Central and South America.
They’re perfectly suited to squash plants. They are early risers, and squash
flowers are only open early in the morning, while honeybees are still asleep.
Don’t like squash? How about tomatoes, potatoes or eggplant?
These crops also need wild pollinators — loud ones like bumblebees to be precise.
Their flowers require a vibrating buzz to release their pollen;
something a bumblebee perfectly provides.
Honeybees just don’t have that skill.
But wild bees are in serious decline.
And this doesn’t only affect them and their ecosystems –
but our food security as well.
Worldwide, wild bee diversity has been decreasing each year
since the 1990s.
Pesticides, intensive agriculture, and especially habitat loss
are main drivers. A recent study found that we may have already
lost a quarter of wild bee species,
but assessment is hard due to the lack of global data.
Various regional estimates suggest over 40%
of wild bee and butterfly species are threatened.
Farmers are already noticing a difference.
“When they walked along a field, everything was full of pollinators,
and nowadays it's
more like everything is calmed down and nobody knows where they are.”
This loss of diversity can cause knock-on effects on whole ecosystems.
Less pollinator diversity means fewer wild plants.
This hurts animals that use them for food or shelter.
And it’s also bad for the future of our food.
“The yield of cultivated plants is higher when there are visits by a variety
of pollinators compared to when they are visited by only honeybees.”
Remember Osmia cornuta, the apple specialist?
“Most of the pollination of apple trees is performed by several species
of wild bees, so, if you don’t get these wild bees you will get
a crop of apples that would be reduced.”
US crops are already producing less due to wild pollinator decline.
And globally we’re planting more and more of the crops that require
animal pollination like fruits, vegetables and oilseeds.
The increase in honeybees hasn’t kept up.
This means pollinator dependence has increased around 70% since 1961.
And combined with the decline in wild pollinators
means an emergency for the global food supply.
This is especially true in countries with many
large monocultures that destroy wild pollinator habitats,
like China and the United States.
Not only that —
the way we use honeybees actually makes them part of the problem.
According to the American Beekeeping Federation, two-thirds of the
2.7 million honeybee colonies in the US are used for pollination.
Most go to the almond fields in California,
where 80% of the world’s almonds come from.
Then bees rotate around the country to pollinate other crops.
Nowhere else in the world uses honeybees for pollination like the US,
but the trend is growing in Europe too, as wild pollinators disappear.
Unfortunately, it’s not so good for the honeybees.
They can be exposed to pesticides from the crops
or catch diseases from the other colonies.
And these honeybees are also a threat to wild ones.
“Within the honeybee hive you have tens of thousands of individuals that need a lot,
a lot of food. They will eat most of the floral resources
and there will not be enough left for the other pollinating species.”
“If you have many, many bees, then they will probably
outcompete these native species very, very fast.”
Honeybees can also spread disease to wild bees.
An infected bee can leave some virus on a flower, to be picked up
by the next wild bee that visits.
It’s not the honeybees’ fault, but ‘save the bees’ definitely
does not mean adding more into the environment.
“There have been a lot of people that thought that they could only save the bees
when having their own beehive in the backyard.
And that's the wrong way to conserve pollinators.”
So what’s the right way?
Industrial agriculture is the biggest threat to all bees. It uses harmful chemicals,
and relies on huge fields of one crop.
Ideally, we change our whole food system.
But on a personal level, supporting small-scale, sustainable farmers, if viable,
also supports diverse habitats for wild bees. Even more can be done with
a backyard, like leaving native plants alone or planting new ones.
Open, sunny ground or dead logs also make great breeding spots for wild bees.
But most of all, they need more attention. We need honeybees but aren’t in danger of
losing them. With the wild bees it’s another story.
“Did you have any idea wild bees were that cool? I am in love with Osmia cornuta, that
apple bee — it’s so cute! Anyway, don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to
our channel. We’ve got new ones every Friday.”