Honey bees have been on the decline in North America since 2006.
Each winter, about 30 percent of beehives will collapse from extreme temperatures, parasites, pesticides, and other threats. So what steps should be taken to avoid losing this pollinator species to extinction?
The key to saving the bees could reside in protecting their habitat, which they have adapted to rely on for resources and protection. Saving the Bees could mean protecting the forests too.
Why Save the Honey Bees?
Honestly, why should we care about the honey bee? It’s a fair question, why should we protect this species known for buzzing and stinging? Here are some ecosystem services provided by the honey bee.
Pollination
Bees serve their ecosystems by spreading pollen, the reproductive agent for most flowing plants. By spreading pollen from flower to flower, bees promote the growth of more plants that produce more flowers and more food.
According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the dollar value of pollination from bees is worth between $235 and $577 billion.
One out of every three bites of food in the United States depends on honey bees and other pollinators. Anyone whose diet consists of fruits, vegetables, and seasonings, is a stakeholder in the honey bee’s wellbeing. The same goes for anyone engaged in growing their own food.
Biodiversity
In addition to dominating the billion-dollar industry of pollination, honeybees are indicators of environmental health. Plants thrive when bees are out there doing their thing in the field.
The service of pollination alone helps stimulate the growth of more plants and more variety of plants. As a pollinator species, bees are actively curating healthy biospheres by maintaining the genetic diversity of plants. Thus, promoting the net primary productivity of healthy forest ecosystems.
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2021. Conservation Work for Honey Bees
20 May National Bee Day, 2018. The Importance of Bees
Honey Bee Ecology
To get the full picture of the honey bee’s relationship with forests, it is important to understand the life cycle of a honey bee colony. Honey bee colonies typically emerge from humble beginnings in the spring as solitary queens.
Miraculously, queen bees are born with all the sperm and eggs needed to build a colony from scratch. They just need immediate nutrients after emerging from their winter burrows in the spring. Studies show that queen bees that struggle to find food early in their life often struggle to build healthy colonies later on.
In addition to quick food, young queens require protection from intense wind, predation, pesticides, and other threats before they are mature enough to seek out the safety of a hive. After their initial survival phase, established colonies may send out worker bees to travel further away from the hive in search of more food to feed the queen and store as honey throughout the summer.
Depending on the success of the previous harvest, honeybees can live off their honey reserves. They’ll use their fuzzy bodies to huddle together and brave the freezing temperatures, reaping the benefits of their work until spring.
Debbie Hadley, ThoughtCo., 2018. How Honey Bees Keep Warm in Winter
Dr. John Mola, 2021. Appreciating the role of forests in bumblebee Conservation
The Importance of Forests for Honey Bees
So how does the forest play into all this? Well, honey bees depend on the forest primarily for sustenance and protection. In an ideal mature forest, the forest floor is littered with abundant flowering plants for bees to conveniently feed on. This is beneficial for queen bees who are most vulnerable to starvation in their infancy.
Especially for juvenile queen bees, the forest acts as a massive vegetation shield against intense wind and drifting pesticides. In the face of climate change, forests help regulate temperatures and the shade provided by the forest canopy protects young honey bees from intense UV radiation.
Mature forest ecosystems provide priceless protections and services to honey bees. With this in mind, it only makes sense to focus conservation efforts for honey bees on preserving their niche habitat, the forest. In this case, conservation efforts are made much more effective with knowledge of ecological relationships.
If you’ve read this far, I challenge you to consider how ecological understanding could impact other aspects of conservation and climate action.
Forest Science Database, 2019. Forests key habitat for pollinator foraging and nesting
Dr. John Mola, 2021. Appreciating the role of forests in bumblebee Conservation