White-tailed Bumblebee © John N Murphy
This week sees the the farming community in full swing with tractors and
combines going 24-7 to try and bring in the second round of silage from
countryside meadows. We also see
tidy towns committees fully kitted out with gloves, clippers, strimmers and
lawn mowers, all busy, buzzing around our towns and villages in the tidy up and
preparations for the judging of this prestigious title. Roadside verges are also being trimmed
by your local councils, as the colourful grasses and weeds that grow there
begin to encrouch onto the tarmac, looking unsightly and untidy to the human
eye. With such activities, little
or no thought is given to one of the most important creatures on the planet,
the humble bumble-bee.
Here in Ireland we have a total
101 different members of the bee family, three of which have become extinct and
more than half have undergone substantial declines in their numbers since
1980. The distribution of 42
species has declined by more than 50% and these species will need to be closely
monitored over the next few years so that they don’t go extinct from our land.
We all know that without the
birds and the bees, life on earth would probably not exist. These humble bumble bees are one of the
key elements in the distribution of pollan and birds of seeds. Bees help cross-pollination plants
giving us new growth and food, and are responsible for much more than we
realise. Albert Einstein once said
that if our bees become extinct the world would only continue to live for
another four years, a worrying thought.
Bumblebee © John N Murphy
So what is causing this decline
in bee populations. Well many natural habitats, like grassland meadows that use
to exist as extensively areas across Ireland, have now been reduced to small
patches here and there, with large areas of housing or intensively farmed land
in between. This is called habitat
fragmentation.
When one of these remaining
habitat patches is destroyed, the bees that live there may not be able to move
because often the nearest area of suitable habitat is just too far for them to
reach. This we see through the
loss of roadside verge vegetation due to the cutting back of wild flowers in
the height of the summer. With no corridors for them to move through like these
roadside verges and flowering hedgerows, bees have nowhere to go, they become
homeless and the population that once lived there, dies out. When this happens across Ireland, the
number of populations can fall to a very low level and the species run the risk
of extinction. Insects have a
tough life, and they face lots of natural hardships.
In more recent times the Irish
summer weather has been unexpectedly wet and cold, causing large numbers of
young bees to freeze to death.
Events like these are natural and a large healthy population will be
able to recover. However, if
numbers have already been reduced through human destruction of the environment,
the chance of recovery is much smaller.
Around the world the story is
similar. In parts of the USA and
Australia bee populations have gone so low that their governments have brought
in legislation to aid bees for the pollination of vital cereal crops and
fruits. Drastic measures are being
carried out to try and assist farming communities to get bees back into their
countryside to pollinate crops. One such measure is to drive a large 60 ft
truck from place to place with hundreds of beehives in the container on the
back. Every morning these hives
are driven to designated parts of the country, doors opened and bees are
released for they day to head out into the fields and go about collecting
nectar. As they do this, they help
spread pollan from fruit tree to fruit tree helping cross-pollination to take
place. The bees return to their
hives at night where the doors of the containers are closed and then these
hives are driven off to some other part of the country the following day, where
the bees are released once more to go about their business.
These are drastic measures
indeed and hopefully we will never see this happen in Ireland. But our Honey
Bees are in difficulty. Did you
know that there are virtually no wild beehives in our countryside. All our bees are now kept in wooded,
artificial beehives by beekeepers.
One of the reasons this has happened is due to the fact that we do not
have enough mature native trees for bees to set up home in and as I stated
earlier the fragmentation of natural habitats. Another major issue is the spread of the bee mite.
Honey bees in Ireland face
a new and potentially deadly threat following confirmation of the arrival of a
virulent parasite. The parasite known as the varroa mite, sucks the blood of bees, eventually killing its
host. Honeybees are notoriously
under siege from a host of global ills, some still deeply mysterious. Both the
USA and the UK report losing a third of their bee population. In Italy it has
nearly halved. In France, an average of 300,000 colonies have disappeared every
year since 1995.
So it looks like we humans
are going to have to step in and help the bees recover. If we keep cutting out areas that look
overgrown or untidy we might just in the long term be killing off future
generations, of not only bees but of our offspring as well. Simple measures can be taken to help. Leave some parts of your garden or
fields untouched for wildlife. I
myself try to leave stands of wild flowers in the lawn to help the bees. Buttercups, dandelions, daisies, Red
Clover, bramble and Fox Gloves are all great nectar providers for bees. Thankfully we are returning to growing
our own vegetables and fruits in our back gardens. A simple thing like planting an apple tree in your garden
that flowers in spring, will attracted the humble bumble by the smell of the
nectar. From your garden this
little bee will head next door and help pollinate your neighbours apple tree.
Hence, life continues and we see the fruits of the bees labour. It’s good for all of us and I love
honey, don’t you!
John N Murphy
