Bringing Back the Bees
Even if you’re living pretty in the city, you can help the honeybee population recover by becoming an urban beekeeper. And it’s easier than you think.
Oakland residents Lisa Arnell-Jones and her husband Stephen never considered living anywhere but in an urban environment. “We’re both very attached to the conveniences of living in a city and having everything we might need within a mile or two of our home,” Lisa explains.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t serious about being green. Environmentally conscientious by nature, when they purchased their first home recently, they immediately invested in solar panels and started rehabilitating the under-watered and overgrown backyard garden.
“We were particularly excited about the backyard, as it included a couple of mature fruit trees,” Lisa recalls.
No bees, no harvest
But the first summer was a disappointment for the urban gardeners. “We were hoping to grow enough plums and pears for our own consumption and have plenty left over to share with neighbors and friends, but it didn’t turn out that way. In fact, we hardly got any fruit at all.”
The trouble, according to members of the unofficial urban farming collective that Lisa and Stephen consulted with, was a scarcity of honeybees.
According to many experts, North American bee populations have not yet recovered from the infamous bee die-off of 2006. Scientists still aren’t in agreement about what caused the mysterious, and dramatic, disappearance of millions of bees from all over Canada and the United States, and coined the term “Colony Collapse Disorder” as a catchall descriptor.
Alarming repercussions
Economically, the abrupt departure of the bees translated to a poor agricultural year, as many of the crops produced in North America are dependent on bees for pollination. Worse, many scientists and ecologists fretted that the disappearance of the bees signaled the beginning of an alarming—and perhaps ultimately devastating—trend for humans as well.
A quote (falsely attributed to Albert Einstein, according to Snopes) began circling the globe via the Internet: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, mankind would have only four years left to live.”
Luckily, the bees didn’t entirely disappear, and the direst predictions proved unfounded. But colonies continued to collapse, and the bees did need help in recovering their numbers. And that’s where Lisa and Stephen came in.
“Our trees needed more bees for pollination, and the bees needed support in terms of a safe, healthy hive,” Lisa says, “so it seemed like a natural response.”
With a little help from a friend
Although wary of stings and feeling somewhat daunted, with the help of the Alameda County Beekeepers Association the Arnell-Joneses dove right in.
“A lot of these guys keep an eye out for ‘wild’ swarms that you can collect, and someone reported seeing an active hive in an old telephone pole not far from our house,” Lisa explains. “Essentially, what happens is that a new queen is born and is ready to leave the original hive and establish her own colony, taking hundreds of drone bees with her.
“If you get there at the right time, with the right equipment, the bees more or less adopt you.”
The couple set up a “bee box” preloaded with honey and went home to wait. When they returned later that evening, the bees had taken up residence. After carefully wrapping the box in blankets, they took their sleepy new helpers home.
Although there’s been a bit of trial and error—“We think we’ve got some kind of fungus happening this season that’s killing off some of the bees,” Lisa says—the whole operation has been a smashing success, and quite a bit easier than either Lisa or Stephen first imagined. “They do know what they’re doing. It’s not like you have to train them to pollinate your flowers and trees or make honey.”
A mutually beneficial relationship
And the bounty has been, well, bountiful. Lisa reports that, in addition to delicious and abundant honey, the fruit trees produced a bumper crop this year, and her and her neighbors’ flowers have never looked better or bloomed more copiously.
Lisa and Stephen are not alone in their newfound enthusiasm for beekeeping. According to the Honey Bee Conservancy, a non-profit educational organization dedicating to promoting beekeeping and securing existing wild honeybee populations, amateur bee-keeping is on the rise, both in rural and urban areas across North America and Europe.
And that’s critically important, because according to the organization’s research, the worldwide bee population is still in what could be grave danger.
“The honeybee deaths from 2010 were much higher than those reported in 2009,” writes Dr. Reese Halter, an award-winning conservation scientist and author. “In 2010, the death rate was 34 percent, up from last year’s rate of 29 percent. On average, beekeepers in the U.S. lost 42 percent of their operational bees in 2009-10 compared with 23 percent in 2008-09. This loss is over three times greater than what is considered acceptable at about 14 percent.”
What you can do
Beekeeping resources abound! If you’re interested in trying your hand, help is but an Internet search away. But even if you’re not quite ready to keep your own hive, you can help the bees rebound. Planting wildflowers provides much-needed nourishment for bee populations, no matter where they’re planted.
Because many scientists believe the use of pesticides may have significantly contributed to ongoing bee deaths, limiting your use—or better yet, completely eliminating the use—of pesticides in your yard or garden will also help significantly.
And remember, the next time a bee flies through your open window don’t automatically reach for the swatter. Instead, remember the symbiosis between humans and bees and gently escort it back outside.