| The growing season in North Idaho is mostly over for this year; many people have already had one or more killing frosts and the rest of us are only a few days away from one. Overall, for us, the plants have done very well, the weather cooperated (mostly) and the critters didn't eat and/or trample everything. The plants grew very large and were covered with flowers since mid-season but didn't set many fruits or vegetables. Most of the flowers just faded and finally fell off. The majority of our gardening friends and neighbors have reported similarly disappointing results.
Many of the local gardeners are wondering what happened. It certainly wasn't because of a, suddenly universal, lack of attention, skill or effort. The answers should concern us all, gardener and non-gardener alike. Let's begin with what was happening, or perhaps better expressed as not happening last spring.
Early in spring, before the region really starts to "green up" local bee-keepers begin their season. An owner of a large local apiary began inspecting his hives to ascertain the condition of his bees after our long winter. Hive after hive was empty. All of them were. What was once a thriving and expanding bee and honey business was completely destroyed. Another local apiary lost 50% of their bees. Other apiaries in this area had similar losses.
A local farmer, "Bill" has been using the "no-till" method for many years. Simply put, a "nurse" crop is planted to both prevent erosion and to add nutrients to the soil. When it is time to plant the market crop, the nurse crop is rolled flat onto the field and the market crop is planted down through it. The flattened nurse crop acts as both mulch and fertilizer for the market crop. The field is never plowed or tilled and therefore never bare and the soil quality is improved a little more each year.
Bill has been using clover as his nurse crop for several years. In spring, he drives his tractor, pulling the equipment behind it, over his fields flattening the heavily-flowered clover. In previous years the bees flew up from the clover in clouds so thick Bill was afraid he might inhale them and he could hear their buzzing over the noise of the tractor. Not this year. This year Bill saw very few bees and heard none.
During the summer, in my travels about the local area, I usually see many hives and supers located in or near farmers' fields. Not this year. Time after time, I saw empty hives and supers stacked under bee-keepers' sheds.
Usually I see several "bee-trucks", stacked high with hives, rolling down the highway in the late evenings, moving bees to yet another field that needs pollinating. Not this year. I only saw one "bee-truck" this year and it was carrying a little over half a load of hives.
We saw very few bees in or around our garden and flower beds this year. Our home gardens, and local area farmers' crops, did poorly because they were poorly pollinated. Mystery solved, but the problems are just beginning.
The collapse of bee colonies is happening all over the world. People have noticed this has been happening for many years.
July 22, 2006; Wild Bees And The Flowers They Pollinate Are Disappearing Together
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
The rate of bee colony collapse is accelerating and the causes are not yet known. There is much speculation that environmental changes, including global warming, and the use of pesticides have negatively effected bees' immune systems making them more susceptible to diseases.
July 1, 2007; HoneyBee Decline; Entomologists Buzzing About Vanishing Bee Populations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/vi...
Some of the diseases are being spread by commercial agricultural activities.
July 23, 2008; Commercial Bees Spreading Disease To Wild Pollinating Bees
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
Perhaps bees are an indicator species, an early warning system if you will, telling us the world's environment has already been degraded to a dangerous degree. The canary in the mine, by its death, signaled to the miners the presence of dangerous gases in time for the miners to escape. This is not so with bees. We depend on them for our food, for our very lives and once the bees in the fields have died, it is already too late for us to escape. |
