EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published in the Spring 2019 magazine.
Climate change, deforestation, air pollution—when it comes to the ways that people are damaging the global environment, the list goes on and on. Many of those issues are impossible to fix on an individual level. There is one environmental conflict, though, that all can play a role in alleviating: the rapid decline of the honeybee. But what are the facts, and what exactly can be done? How can we promote interspecies harmony?
Though it started long before then, the problem first received major attention in 2006, when the term “Colony Collapse Disorder,” or CCD, was coined. The term CCD is used when a colony still has a live queen but no more living adult bees. Since the turn of the century, both beekeepers and scientists have noticed sudden declines in bee populations (mostly in the US and Europe), largely caused by disease, poor nutrition, habitat loss, and pesticide exposure. Bees exposed to these forces can have disrupted life cycles, disorientation, and compromised immune systems, meaning that they will not pollinate as effectively. They then also become incredibly susceptible to varroosis, a disease caused by the deadly Varroa mite (sometimes affectionately termed the Varroa destructor). CCD is rampant. Decline in pollinator levels is important for humanity because 75 percent of crops depend on pollination; even products like medicines, biofuels, and fibers would be affected by disruption of bees (and other pollinators). So, for the past decade, it has been widely accepted that honey bees are dying and that greater environmental consciousness is necessary to save them. Plenty of action has been taken; the European Union, for example, banned outdoor use of certain pesticides that damaged bees’ immune systems. In California, researchers successfully advocated for safer insecticide practices. Within the general public, some advocate for buying local honey or planting bee-friendly flowers to help the bees pollinate. The world has become very much pro-pollinator.
However, these efforts may be slightly misguided. What many everyday consumers are unaware of is the difference between wild bees and “managed” bees—those that are maintained by beekeepers for commercial purposes. Wild bee populations are affected by environmental issues, but managed bees are part of the agricultural system and are not actually incorporated into local ecosystems. They are the insect equivalent of cows on a commercial farm. However, while domesticated cows present little danger to wild populations, managed honey bees can harm wild species. Research shows that managed bees can negatively affect wild bees via competition, changing the local plant communities, spreading pathogens, or at least by exacerbating ongoing population decline in wild groups. They also tend to both outcompete wild bees and disperse into the surrounding environments in unusually high densities, hurting even non-pollinator species just by virtue of the sheer number of new organisms in the area. Honey bees, as an agrarian tool, are also often moved around to different regions depending on whether crops are in bloom—from California almonds in the spring to Washington apples in the summer—but every geographical rotation introduces the bees as a new species into each environment, jeopardizing biodiversity.
This is not to say that the bees are not dying. Beekeepers’ fears are entirely valid—CCD has caused annual managed bee colony losses of up to 30 percent. And when managed bees spread pathogens to wild bees, the wild populations also suffer dramatically. There exists, however, an issue with the way the bee crisis is publicized. When it is portrayed as an environmental issue rather than a commercial-bee-farm issue, news-savvy consumers change their habits to help out as much as they can. But our individual conservation attempts, when uninformed, may end up doing more harm than good. To save the bees—both managed and wild—efforts need to target specific underlying causes, and consumers need to be made aware of the details. Lobbying against pesticide use, for example, would help both bee subgroups. Planting bee-friendly flowers also helps all bees. Going out of one’s way to buy honey from a local beekeeper, though, only helps managed bees. This is no reason to abandon buying honey, certainly, but these purchases are not inherently benefitting pollinator conservation.
If any lesson is to be taken from the bee crisis, let it be this: environmental issues are often more complicated than they may seem, and it is necessary to stay fully informed to help the environment. All actions cannot be assumed to be equally beneficial. If we want to help the bees, we need to help all of the bees.