World Bee Day happened the other day, May 20, and it caught me off guard. I had never heard of it, and hustled to make some social media posts for the Facebook groups I founded or administer. I will plan a bigger campaign of celebration next year, but for now....
In fairness, World Bee Day has not been in existence very long. The date honors the birthday of Anton Janša of Slovenia, a pioneer of modern beekeeping in the eighteenth century. The United Nations passed a resolution submitted by Slovenia in 2017 to so honor him. While beekeeping in the northern hemisphere applies only to honey bees in the genus Apis, the U.N. has chosen to use World Bee Day as an opportunity to acknowledge all bee species, the vast majority of which are solitary and not managed by human beings.
Given the plight of pollinators in general, and the threats to apiculture (beekeeping) from mites, pesticides, industrial-scale agriculture, habitat destruction, and climate....anomalies of increasing frequency, it is easy to be pessimistic and sorrowful on World Bee Day. However, there are signs of hope all around us.
More people are taking up apiculture as a hobby, for example. Even better, many homeowners and small-scale farmers are recognizing the importance of native bees and building simple housing for them in the shape of "bee condos." Now a small movement is building to advocate for allowing those bare patches of soil in your lawn and flowerbed to lie fallow. The overwhelming majority of solitary bees in North America nest in burrows they excavate in the ground. Sometimes many females will nest in close proximity, giving the illusion of a "hive" or a swarm. This is not the case, and unless you step on a bee in bare feet or forcibly grab one, it is not going to sting you. Different bee species prefer different textures of soil, from sandy to clayey.
Among the many reasons to celebrate World Bee Day this year is the rediscovery of the world's largest bee, Wallace's Giant Resin bee, Megachile pluto, nesting in termite mounds in Indonesia. It is an important reminder that the natural world is resilient, to at least some degree, and that most species can persist even in unfavorable circumstances.
Colorado, where my wife and I live, ranks fifth in bee diversity in the USA, boasting at least 946 species from huge bumble bees to tiny mining bees in the genus Perdita. California (1,651), Arizona (1,182), New Mexico (991), and Utah (979) rank ahead of us. That makes for a lot of bee species that need conservation if we want to continue enjoying wildflowers and eating everything from blueberries to squash to almonds.
We can encourage bees by....
- landscaping with native trees, shrubs, herbs, and flowers.
- Erecting bee blocks as supplementary housing for solitary bees (and wasps) that normally nest in the dead trees we cut down and logs we haul off.
- Become "weed tolerant" of plants that volunteer in our yards, as long as they are not state-listed noxious weeds. Chances are they are native or naturalized wildflowers instead.
- Leave a few bare patches in the lawn (if you still insist on having a lawn) and flowerbeds so that ground-nesting bees have a place to call home.
- Advocate for changes to municipal and HOA codes and rules that currently discourage eco-friendly landscaping.
It goes without saying that eliminating pesticides and other chemicals from your yard and garden will greatly benefit all life, not just on your property but elsewhere, too, as pesticides drift on the wind and flow in runoff from rain and watering.
World Bee Day is behind us this year, but no worries. You can gear up now to celebrate National Pollinator Week next month, June 17-23, 2019. Tell me how you plan(t?) to respect that designated "holiday." Maybe you need to do what I should do, which is call my governor and ask why Colorado is not yet on the map for it....
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