Bees in crisis

By: David Walker, Executive Officer
December 19, 2011

One of every three mouthfuls of food we eat is the result of insect pollination, while honey bees also pollinate food for native animals and play a big role in maintaining biodiversity.

I came across an interesting article on bees in G Magazine.

The humble bee is one of the most important insects on Earth. Around the world, these tiny, tireless workers are under siege and disappearing fast, with a sting in the tail for all of us.

There’s good reason for the old cliché of the ‘busy bee’. The short lives of some of nature’s hardest workers are spent on long trips to gather honey-making nectar as far as 10 km from the hive. As they fly from plant to plant, bees pollinate many of our plants and agricultural crops.

Australia’s main honey bee species, the European honey bee (Apis mellifera), was introduced in the 1820s. It is an industrious pollinator in managed hives and in the wild. But in recent years, our worker bees have been abruptly disappearing from their hives – part of a worldwide phenomenon that has been given the name colony collapse disorder (CCD).

So what’s causing these hard-working honey hoarders to suddenly drop like flies? Habitat loss, diseases, invasive species and agricultural insecticides are thought to be among the barrage of contributing factors.

One of the invasive species causing havoc is the small hive beetle, a pest introduced by means unknown and first identified in Australia in 2002. They take over healthy hives, laying their eggs, so that their larvae infest and destroy the hive. 

Another invader is the Asian bee (Apis cerana). A close relative of the European honey bee, it was discovered in Cairns in May 2007. Since then, more than 300 swarms of the pest have been destroyed.

Asian bees compete with European bees for nectar and steal honey from managed hives, which can lead to the starvation of those colonies.

With Asian bees, it’s not just Australia’s honey industry at stake. In competing with possums, nectar-eating birds and native bees for food and shelter, the new Asian bee species could have serious repercussions for biodiversity. They are smaller and can use smaller cavities for nesting, and so can kill birds or possums and take over their nesting hollows.

Asian bees are also the natural host of varroa (Varroa destructor), a bee mite that has wiped out commercial and feral hives around the world. They suck the blood of bees and if left untreated, an infested colony will eventually die. Australia is the only major bee-keeping country not yet hit by this hitchhiking parasite.

All of these potential threats could have a huge impact on food production. Without pollination, there’s no food security.

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