AS THE flight of the bumblebee becomes the plight of the bumblebee, concern is growing at the devastating decline of all bees worldwide. That spring buzz of the busy animals that pollinate 90 per cent of the world’s crops is in danger of disappearing. The question being asked is why, but the answer is complicated.
Much blame is laid on the development by companies such as Bayer and Syngenta for the pesticides containing Neonicotinoids introduced in the 1990s: hailed as less toxic good news to previously potentially human-damaging pesticides but, like antibiotics, once let loose in the indiscriminate hands of humans, and misused, their effects are unknown. Already France and Germany have banned them worried by the link to bee population decline, but under pressure from farming lobbies they have been re-instated.
Yet, two UK studies published this week re-emphasise the problems: exposure causes dramatic reductions in the number of queens produced in bumble bee colonies and, in honey bees, already extinct as a wild species in the UK, affects the foragers’ ability to find their way back to the hive. So why aren’t our governments taking immediate action?
Well despite the evidence, there are simply too many other possible factors which make it hard for governments to act when they are looking to chemical giants to create wealth and jobs in these hard times.
We already know that the tiny Varroa mite destroys hive colonies. Arguably, more successful since the mouths of domesticated ‘hive’ honey bees have been genetically enlarged to collect more honey. We also have some scantier scientific studies that point to the invidious threat of the mobile phone network, affecting bees ability to navigate. Studies at Universities in Chandigarh and Landau in Germany both found bees were affected by power lines and mobile phone fields. Other scientists point to climate change and drought conditions.
So where does this leave the poor bee and us? For it was Einstein who reportedly said, “If honey bees become extinct, human society will follow in four years.”
In the warmth of a Pelopponese spring, fields ablaze with poppies and peonies, they are about to celebrate Easter…impossible to imagine a Greek table without honey. Around any village white washed hives line the hillsides. In the small Timios Prodomos Covent, within the the walls of a Venetian fortress facing across the sea to the mounts of the Mani, they will serve mouth melting rosewater and honey cakes this Easter. Easy to imagine this is the Arcadian promised land. But here too bees are in decline. Fires have damaged habitat, farmers spray vines with violent blue chemicals, and no self respecting Greek would have his hand off his mobile phone.
Ti na kanoume? The best you and I can do is leave our gardens, like the nuns, to fill with wild flowers and hope Einstein was wrong, and that in this age of unstoppable change, it is the smallest and most hardworking who adapt first.
