Posts Tagged: Bees
Rangelands conservation helps farmers
As it turns out, the farmer and the cowman should be friends, as the classic “Oklahoma!” song suggests. According to a just-published UC Berkeley study, wild bee species pollinate California crops to the tune of $937 million to $2.4 billion per year. That amounts to more than one-third of all pollination “services” to the state’s crops.
Many of those crop-pollinating wild bees live in rangelands – chiefly ranches that graze cattle.
“This means that preserving rangelands has significant economic value, not only to the ranchers who graze their cattle there, but also to farmers who need the pollinators,” said Claire Kremen, UC Berkeley associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, and senior author of the study.
The assumption that wild pollinators were not a significant source of crop pollination is more than just conventional wisdom – it’s business: a majority of farmers rent European honeybees to ensure crop pollination.
But beekeepers have suffered high rates of colony losses due to diseases, pesticides and management factors, increasing the uncertainty of both supply and rental prices.
And wild pollinator species have also shown declines in abundance and diversity on farmlands, most likely due to habitat loss from the intensive monoculture, or single crop, production system that typifies much of California’s agricultural lands.
The result? They are most scarce precisely where they are needed the most.
“Currently, wild pollinators are least abundant in intensive monoculture production areas such as sunflowers, almonds and melons, where demand for pollination services is largest,” said Kremen.
Kremen equated depending mainly on one species – the European honeybee – with putting all our retirement savings in one stock.
“The wisdom of diversification holds true for agriculture as well and yet, many Calfornia farmers rely solely on European honeybees for crop pollination,” Kremen said, adding that the unpredictability associated with climate change amplifies the importance of diversification.
“Some insect species will thrive in changed climate conditions, and other won’t. Maintaining a biodiverse stock of pollinators is like the insurance that a diversified stock portfolio brings: some will be up, some will be down, but having a portfolio of many different species ensures viability into the future,” Kremen said.
While it’s common sense that healthy crops result in a healthy food supply, a separate study led by Kremen, also just published, put a number on the human health benefit of ensuring the viability of pollinators. The researchers estimated that up to 40 percent of some essential nutrients provided by fruits and vegetables could be lost if there were no pollinators around to do the job.
Payment for services rendered
Placing a value on ecosystem services is an established part of conservation science, and this new finding comes at a time when there is growing interest within the ranching community in providing ecosystem services. For example, as part of conservation efforts, California ranchers have been asked to maintain flowers for endangered butterflies and to keep small spring wetlands known as vernal pools healthy – using grazing as a tool to manipulate the grassland.
Darrel Sweet, a fifth generation cattle rancher from Livermore and a former president of the California Cattlemen's Association, said that placing a dollar value on rangelands pollination services lends powerful support to these efforts.
“The value of grazing and other land stewardship practices of California’s ranchers is being increasingly acknowledged as not only a preferred land use, but also as an essential resource management tool,” said Sweet. “I hope this study is just the beginning of comparable findings that show how ranching is a critical – and multifaceted – element of California agriculture.”
The state’s rangelands have been decreasing steadily, as the foothills and oak-dotted grasslands can be highly desirable for residential development. California lost 105,000 acres of grazing lands to urbanization between 1990 and 2004, according to the state Department of Conservation. The California Oak Foundation projects that the state could lose another 750,000 acres by 2040.
Kremen said the findings suggest that if farmers paid ranchers to stay on the land and maintain the habitat, the farmers would be increasing their sources of pollination and developing critical diversification to support their agricultural practices.
These bees 'cut it'
We're in the midst of a housing crisis, so why not build a 30-unit, high-rise condo in your yard?
No, not for people--for native bees.
We just installed a bee condo for leafcutting bees (Megachile spp.), on a five-foot high pole overlooking catmint, lavender and salvia. The "housing development" is actually a wooden board drilled with small holes to accommodate our tiny tenants. Comfy and convenient. Rooms with a view. No housing permits or EIR required. Rent-free, mortgage-free.
Leafcutting bees, aka leafcutter bees, are about the size of a honey bee but darker, with the characteristic light-banded abdomens. They are important pollinators.
Why are they called leafcutter bees? Because the females cut leaf fragments to construct their nests to raise their brood. In nature, they build their nests in soft, rotted wood or in the pithy stems of such plants as roses, raspberries, sumac and elderberry.
Unlike honey bees, which are social, the leafcutting bee is a solitary nesting bee. She provisions her leaf-lined nest with nectar and pollen, lays an egg, and seals the cell before leaving.
Commercially made bee condos are available at beekeeping supply stores or on the Internet. You can make or buy a board with different sized-holes so other native bees, such as blue orchard bees, aka mason bees, receive a "home, sweet home," too, and deliver pollinator services.
And enable you to tell your family and friends that you're a "bee landlord" or beekeeper.
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers tips on building bee condos on its website and in its publications, including Farming for Bees: Guidelines for Providing Native Bee Habitat on Farms.
If you don't want bee boards housing your tenants, you can provide straws or hollow bamboo stems.
At the UC Davis Department of Entomology, doctoral candidate Emily Bzdyk is doing research on leafcutter bees. "Basically I'm doing a revision of the subgenus Litomegachile, part of the large genus Megachile, which includes leafcutter and resin bees," she said. "They are native to North America. My goals are to find out how many and what the species are in Litomegachile, and find out as much as I can about their biology, or how they make a living."
"I also want to identify clearly what the boundaries between the species are, or how to tell them apart from one another," said Bzdyk, whose major professor is Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. "Litomegachile are very common and hard-to-identify to species, and I feel they deserve attention."
Bzdyk noted that some Megachile are used in commercial alfalfa production. The alfalfa leafcutter bee, native to Europe, is used for commercial pollination of alfalfa, she said. "The Litomegachile is probably very closely related."
The alfalfa growers erect giant bee condos in their fields to draw bees to their plants.
With home gardeners, the effect is the same.
If you build them, they will come.
Leafcutting bees, aka leafcutter bees (genus Megachile) head toward a bee condo built for these and other pollinators. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Home sweet home: Oblivious to ants, a leafcutter bee heads for home. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Male leafcutter bee (genus Megachile) sips nectar from a rock purslane. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Backwards is the new forwards
CNN posted a story on its website yesterday about a movement in beekeeping that embraces "organic" techniques. "Backwards Beekeepers" are advocates of chemical and pesticide-free beekeeping -- far different, they say, from the commercial beekeeping industry.
The article noted that commercial beekeepers are dealing with the disappearance of an alarming number of bee hives, a phenomenon scientists call colony collapse disorder.
Backwards beekeeper Russell Bates calls the problem "chemical collapse disorder" because, in addition to the stress on bees caused by certain commercial beekeeping practices, the beekeepers use miticides and antibiotics inside the hives to control Varroa mites.
CNN confirmed the fact with UC Davis honey bee expert Eric Mussen.
"The majority of commercial beekeepers do put chemicals in their hives mostly to control Varroa mites," Mussen was quoted.
Bates said the bees are stressed by the inability to freely leave the hive while being transported from field to field or orchard to orchard.
"They're starved between trips and they won't poop in the hive," Bates said. "When they get there, they're fed corn syrup and artificial pollen."
Bates says he's not vilifying commercial beekeepers, but believes that their methods and practices aren't sustainable.
In a CNN video posted with the story, the featured beekeepers assert that their old-fashioned approach to tending bees, "backwards," is the new forwards.
Bee hive photo by Kathy Garvey.
Bee hives targeted by thieves
A Chowchilla beekeeper lost more than 400 hives to thieves this month, but with networking and investigation, was able to find the hide-out and get his bees back.
UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Shannon Mueller spoke to KMPH Channel 26 News about the heist.
"They (farmers) are paying about $180 a hive, so those hives are worth a lot of money and because of that, we’ve seen a real increase in the theft of colonies," Mueller said.
In all, the stolen bee colonies were worth about $120,000, according to an article in AgAlert.
"The good news is after some tips from other local beekeepers and some searching, we found the missing bees and called the local sheriff's department," beekeeper Brian Long was quoted in the AgAlert article. "We just got lucky and got enough tips that led us to the bees."
Still, Long estimates he lost between $12,000 and $15,000 after hundreds of bees died in the commotion.
Beekeepers and farmers cannot afford the loss of any bees. Between February and March, California's 750,000 acres of almonds require an estimated 1.2 million bee colonies for pollination. UC Davis entomologist Eric Mussen told AgAlert reporter Christine Souza that strong colonies of bees may be scarce this season.
"Despite these problems, it seems that every year the lure of almond pollination fees entices enough beekeepers to bring their bees to California to meet the needs of the almond growers," Mussen said.
Shannon Mueller appeared on an evening news story about the bee heist.
Honey, I'm homemade!
The bees did it.Well, they enabled it.
Take a look at one of May Berenbaum’s favorite honey recipes and you’ll know why she calls it “Apiscotti” or “Bee-Enabled Biscotti.”
Seven of the 12 ingredients (butter, honey, almond extract, nutmeg, cranberries, cherries, and almonds) depend on the pollination services of the honey bee, Apis mellifera.
May Berenbaum, professor and head of the University of Illinois Department of Entomology, kindly shared the recipe below.
You may know her as an entomologist, an administrator, a honey bee researcher, a book author, a columnist (American Entomologist), an opinion page writer (see her piece on bed bugs in the New York Times) a wife and a mother.
But not a beekeeper
“Although I’m an entomologist, I’m not in any sense of the word a beekeeper,” she writes in her newly published book, Honey, I'm Homemade: Sweet Treats from the Beehive Across the Centuries and Around the World, a project that benefits the University of Illinois Pollinatarium, the nation's first free-standing science outreach center devoted to flowering plants and their pollinators.
“At various intervals during my life I’ve been a bee landlord—other entomologists have kept bees on property I own—but I’ve never personally had a hive I could call my own or been involved in the production of honey. Truth be told, I’m a little afraid of honey bees—and not just because they can sting. The stings are a manageable risk. What I find unnerving about bees is how eerily talented they are and how profoundly different from the million-plus other species of insects.”
Berenbaum, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, says that honey is a unique food “because of its power to evoke a particular time and place. Every time it is collected from a hive, honey takes on the nuanced flavors of a particular set of flowers--clover, orange blossoms, buckwheat, or others--at a certain point in time processed and stored by a particular group of bees. Honey is not just a snapshot of a time and place--it's the taste of a time and place, and it lends its flavors to the delectable baked goods and other treats found here.”
Indeed, we’re glad to see a project benefitting the Pollinatarium and heralding the humble honey bee. In pollination services alone, honey bees contribute approximately $20 billion annually to American agriculture. And the value of the 2008 honey crop totaled more than $226 million, Berenbaum points out.
Without the honey bee, there would be no Apiscotti—or most of the other foods we enjoy. And that would bee disastrous.
Here’s her recipe for Apiscotti.
Apiscotti (Bee-enabled Biscotti)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 to 3 cups flour
1/2 dried cranberries, chopped
1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped
1/2 cup blanched sliced almonds, chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream sugar and butter together; mix in honey until smooth. Beat eggs until frothy and then add salt, almond extract, nutmeg, and baking powder. Combine the sugar-butter mixture with the egg mixture. Add flour until dough is a consistency that can be handled. Refrigerate dough for 1 hour or more.
Divide chilled dough into 3 parts and flatten each third into a rectangle (use additional flour to make handling easier if necessary). Place a line at the center of each flattened section of dough and fill with chopped cherries, cranberries, and nuts. Fold the sides of each rectangle over to form a loaf, filling in center, and seal.
Place loaves on greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until golden brown. Slice on a slant while hot into 1/2-inch slices. For crispier slices, return to oven for 5–10 minutes, or until golden brown (the color of a honey bee).
May Berenbaum
Honey Bee on Honey Comb