39|Where's Waldo?

"I don't see Waldo inside."

"That's because Waldo just parked."

I never fit in. Fit in clothes, shoes, school, parties, or a whole lot of much. So, when sharing my dietary habits and whether or not I consumed honey --more or less, me bluntly stating I do not consume honey --I found out that I do not fit in with the surrounding vegan populous. 

My initial argument for not eating honey was that it is just as unsustainable as eating meat because the bee population is declining. This did not stick long. Bees do not produce an excess of natural gas and instead pollinate a variety of plants. As a matter of fact, different species of bees make up 61% of all plant pollinators with almost half of that coming from honeybees alone. 

Woah, so, wouldn't it make sense to demand more honey to encourage bee farms? Same question always stands with meat, if my honey is sustainably sourced and cruelty free, is it still safe honey?

To this, I started to ramble because I wanted to prove a point but something in my memory from either of surfing the web or stoned Futurama sparked my next point. Even if you have a bee farm, how will you control where your bees are flying, who they come in contact with, and who are they sharing contact with on the plants they pollinate? I thought about Colony Collapse Disorder and Bender blasting rodents off of giant space bee butts. I also thought about monoculture bananas in the 1960's being killed off by the spread of a fungus. 

"It's a wide spread bee epidemic, a pathogen in the air"

My answer was good enough to buy me some time to truly answer the question, what are we going to do about out bees?

The Problem

Bees are declining at a rapid rate and farmers and scientists alike have not thought of a solution.

The Outcome

Hundreds of species will go extinct starting with leafy greens and sweet berries. I don't want to say total devastation but let's just say, it's a lot harder to retain water in soil without any roots.

The Causes

1. The easy one is climate change. 

Bees have a limited environment despite being wide range. It is low altitude for the most part and temporal like most species. Reducing the amount of bee species reduces the plant specialization for different plant species. Bees, unlike other pollinators, specialize on a select plant or plant species and are very efficient and effective for that reason. Other pollinators cross-pollinate and don't bother turning back.

2. The moral one is mass bee farming.

A lot of the bees we use for agriculture are brought in by bee farms that transport their hives in trucks from orchard to orchard and from vineyard to vineyard. Needless to say, the bees become very stressed. Furthermore, they are transported from different places and every growing condition can be different. Since these are commercial bee farms, even if one worker bee gets sick, the whole hive can collapse followed by the collapse of neighboring hives especially because of proximity. Why farm bees and leave them to die?

3. Meet the Varroa...

The Varroa is a parasite that feasts on bees and bee larvae. The Varroa has been running a muck on bee hives since the start of the industrial era. This has also been a long time coming. In about the 1900's something started changing genetically in these parasites to specifically target bees better through becoming flatter and better at burrowing. This bugs crawl in between the torso of bees and in the cells of larvae to feast. Damages include bees no longer returning to their hives, defects, deformities, and overall hive collapse. Varroa parasites have a relatively short life-cycle and females can only reproduce once. Varroa are also similar to the pine beetle, the colder the winter, the higher the mortality and increased dormancy. But, with climate change, Varroa parasites can reproduce more frequently with shortened dormancy periods; so, a natural population control turned into a population devastation as bees no longer could bounce back.

4. Did you find Waldo yet?

Hoverflies are a very important pollinator but they are not bees. Hoverflies also have black and yellow stripes that look very similar to bees and wasps. The difference is that hoverflies as much less selective of plants to pollinate but also have a much greater travelling range. Many gardening sites have also been advertising the benefit of hoverflies, especially for their appetite for aphids! But, recent studies have found a nasty secret about Hoverflies. Hoverflies are carriers of different bee viruses without getting infected themselves. Though the interaction is still unclear, when bees land on the same flowers that Hoverflies previously have pollinated or landed on, they become sick and infect the rest of their hive. 

5. Bees are technically pests. 

Using pesticides against common bugs like aphids and locust has been a commercial practice for a long time. With the expansion of agriculture, the widespread use of pesticides and their toxicity has increased. Bees are clueless about whether or not a field has been sprayed with pesticides mainly because pesticides are meant to deter bugs through strong odors or being so hard to notice, they end up poisoning the bugs. Many pesticides are neurotoxins for bees as well as a physical toxin that can cause deformaties.

The Solution

1. Use organic and naturally derived pesticides

Easy pesticides include eucalyptus and chili peppers

Take a look at what you can do.

2. Plant wild flowers around your garden

This promotes healthy pollinating communities

Easy flowers include lavendar, cosmos, and hosta

3. Make a bee bath!

Bees need water to drink and use in their hives

Here's How!

4. Donate to a sustainable world

Follow this link to my charity

5. Buy sustainable honey

22 brands right here!

6. Leave the flowering weeds

Dandelions provide food for bees while green lawns are 

7. No garden is too small

Windowsills are great for full sun flowers

Bee baths are also great for window gardens as they are as big as an ashtray!