The Future of Pollinators Is Up to Us
- Part 4

Karen Edmundson Bean is a nationally published freelance journalist specializing in science and the environment. She is also an award-winning producer/writer/cinematographer of natural history and backcountry videos (www.Walking-Wild.com) and one of the few women to hold director of photography status in the International Cinematographers Guild. Her farm in Maple Falls is home to her cashmere goats, Shetland sheep and, of course, honeybees.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

It’s a rough world out there for pollinators. Populations of honeybees and native pollinators are in steep declines. Native habitat is disappearing. Open space continues to fall beneath the bulldozers of expanding towns and cities. Agricultural corporations and large farms increasingly rely on monocultures that eliminate wildflowers and corridors of native vegetation. Pesticides continue to be a mainstay of the growers of a wide variety of plants from beans and apples to cotton and Douglas firs.

Modern transportation allows for the rapid spread of pests and diseases that take a toll on both native pollinators and honeybees. It can be downright depressing, not to mention deadly for the pollinators and many other species, including humans, who depend on the plants the pollinators help propagate. There is hope, however, if people take action.

Some of that action requires special knowledge. Part of the answer to the decline of the honeybee lies within the realm of genetics and bee breeding. The goal for many researchers is the development of honeybees that are tolerant of the imported parasites that have caused millions of honeybees to perish. This is vital to the survival of honeybees.

The plight of native pollinators needs more scientific studies, according to the Xerces Society and the National Academy of Sciences. Further investigations of the status of native pollinators and the causes of their declines are vital. These studies can lead to solutions that will help restore native habitat and, hopefully, reverse the decline of pollinators, which include insects, birds and mammals.

“We won’t get back to a landscape that was there before big agriculture, to the numbers that were thriving when the Great Plains were a grassland,” explains Mace Vaughan of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “The goal is to bring back a habitat that will realistically support the native pollinators.”

The restoration of the population of the surviving native pollinators and of honeybees requires the help of both farmers and bee breeders. Both Dr. Steve Sheppard, who holds the Thurber Chair of Apiculture, Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, and Vaughan look to smaller companies to spearhead the restoration of honeybees and native pollinators. In Sheppard’s view “smaller breeding efforts will produce bees that have all the desired apiculture qualities and be tolerant of the mites.”

Vaughan sees a similar pattern for the restoration of habitat that would enable native pollinators to rebound and aid in commercial pollination. “The small farmers and organic farmers have a drive for diversity. They are the early adaptors,” he says.

The results achieved by these smaller producers can influence larger companies, farmers and corporate interests, according to both Vaughan and Sheppard. Vaughan believes that “…the larger [agricultural interests] have a system in place and they want to see results before they change.”

Sheppard’s world of honeybees is virtually the same. “Big breeders want a sure thing before they switch,” he says.

The pressure to have the larger breeding apiaries breed for mite tolerant queen bees can begin with backyard beekeepers, in Sheppard’s opinion. He encourages all beekeepers, including people with only a few hives, to purchase queens from breeders who incorporate mite tolerance into their breeding programs. “Find out what happens where your queens are bred. Ask [the supplier] how they select to incorporate mite tolerance.”

The voice of the people is vital to the restoration of the native habitat needed to support native pollinators, according to Dr. Nan Vance, research plant physiologist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the National Forest Service. “Support education and outdoor school programs that include information about pollinators. Go to the parks in the cities and the counties and say ‘We want a natural wild area in the park.’ The people can push on the parks to create a diversity of natural habitats, help native plant restoration and help the pollinators.”

Restoration projects for native pollinator habitat must be financed and completed. Part of this requires the help of people from grant writers to those who plant the vegetation. Equally important is people’s support and participation in organizations which are integral to native pollinator studies, habitat restoration and education, such as the Xerces Society and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign.

“Everyone with a garden and every garden group can contribute by growing pollinator friendly plants,” adds Vance.

“Homeowners can plant a diversity of native species,” agrees Vaughan. He suggests planting native species that will flower from spring to fall. “They need to plant in some abundance and plant billboards.” Billboards are three-foot by three-foot areas planted with native flowers that bloom all at once. “Bees are small things trying to find forage in a big world,” he explains. “They need something that says ‘here it is.’ Billboards really bring them in.”

Many gardens have room for native pollinator nest sites among the flowers. A bit of cleared space or some overgrown areas can be the nursery for future generations of pollinators. The Xerces Society Web site, http://Xerces.org has downloads with pollinator plant suggestions for Pacific Northwest gardens as well as instructions on making space for pollinators’ nests.

For some people, the thought of bees in their garden sends shivers up their spine. There is no need for fear. Most natives are small solitary bees that cannot sting. Even those bees that can sting, the bumblebees and honeybees are usually gentle when working solo on blooms.

The transformation of a green lawn into a pollinators’ habitat filled with flowering plants can provide habitat not only to pollinators, but to other native animals as well. It involves looking at a garden as the extension of our environment. Pesticide use in cities can be as excessive and as damaging as it is in agricultural areas. Gardens without pesticides are good for all animals, including humans. Explore new ways to deal with garden issues.

No garden and no time? The pollinators can benefit every time a purchase is made. “Buy shade grown coffee and support organic farmers,” Vance suggests.

“Get to know a beekeeper and buy local honey,” encourages Sheppard. “If people want to get honey without pesticides and not get heated, filtered honey that comes from China, or Argentina or other places where there are little or no regulations on what you can put in a hive, they should buy local honey. That might make a difference to honeybees, too. … The more support there is for sustainable beekeeping, the more demand there will be for queens that are tolerant [to mites].”

He sees that demand as a building block; the public’s demand for honey created in local, pesticide-free hives, can lead to more bees raised by local beekeepers. Their need for more queen bees would increase the demand for queens raised without pesticides. As more bee breeders respond to that demand more bees would be raised who are mite tolerant.

When those bees demonstrate their ability to produce substantial amounts of honey and pollinate crops while being mite tolerant, more commercial beekeepers would begin to use the tolerant bees. Healthy honeybees and fewer pesticides in beehives can aid in the resurgence in beekeeping and increase in the number of honeybees to provide crop pollination.

An act as simple as the purchase of local honey or organic produce can begin a series of events that, in the end, will help both native pollinators and honeybees. Asking that parks include programs on native pollinators costs nothing. Working in our gardens or community gardens can be both a joy and an action that will provide pollinators with food and nests.

When we stop putting the pesticides in our yards and our foods we help both natives and nonnatives. We need not be scientists, commercial bee breeders, farmers or beekeepers, but we can all make a difference. Progress can be made. It will be a long road back to healthy, sustainable levels of honeybees and native pollinators, but we have the potential to get there.

When we reach those levels, we can look forward to a future that includes late night pizza made with cheese from animals that foraged on bee-pollinated clover, tomatoes pollinated by bumblebees and peppers pollinated by honeybees. Dessert might be a piece of pie with apples brought to you by the work of bees, and nice cup of tea with honey. Of course we might still have nightmares, but they will be only that — bad dreams — not visions of a world devoid of plants and animals because the pollinators have vanished. §