Continuing on with the agricultural theme from my last post, today I would like to look at the article “Modern agriculture is stressing honeybees: let’s go native” written by Manu Saunders for theconversation.edu.au.
When most people think of bees, they think off the European honeybee Apis mellifera. Honeybees are highly important pollinators, particularly in commercial cropping systems. Unfortunately, as you may be aware there is increasing evidence to suggest that honeybee populations are in decline. These declines are associated with diseases, Varroa mites and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Such declines in honeybee populations will affect food production, honey, bee’s wax and the health industries.
European honeybee, Apis mellifera: image taken from Jiri Bohdal, http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/apis-mellifera-photo_lat-3282.html
To try and combat the issue of declining bee populations, intensive cropping systems are beginning to rely on “renting” bee hives to try and maintain productivity. This process involves packing up the honeybees onto trucks and shipping them around the country to wherever the crops are flowering. At a glance this concept may seem somewhat clever, however this process places the bees under constant physical stress, frequently exposes them to pesticides and forces them to continuously adapt to new climates, landscapes and plant resources. Also, when the bees aren’t being utilised in crop pollination they are fed unnatural diets like sugar syrup. This practice is detrimental to the health of the bees and hives and as a result, it is beneficial for pests and diseases.
As I mentioned, honeybees are important pollinators particularly in cropping, however they are not the only pollinators – Australia has its own diverse native bee fauna as well as numerous other pollinator insects including wasps, flies, beetles, ants, moths and butterflies. Our native pollin
ators are a potentially valuable resource for the agricultural industry and using native species would mean that bee “renting” is no longer required.
Unfortunately there is little published research on the benefits of native pollinators in Australian agricultural systems. Therefore for native pollinators to be used more extensively, research is required.
Native species, both plants and animals, are an extremely valuable resource and I think the more we can utilise native species (with the proviso that there is no detrimental effect to the species or the environment) the better off we will be.
Here are links to some more articles for further reading:
