Bee Cause

Protecting and Enjoying our Precious Pollinators

There’s something magical about happening upon a bee in the garden or in the woods— the way it hover-flies and lands on the petal of a lupine flower, clutches the golden pollen and, with that tiny straw mouth, drinks the nectar. With bee survival in peril, will our children’s children know this joyful sight? As World Bee Day nears on May 20, we reflect on what’s keeping bees from thriving, how organic farming is protecting them, and the sweet, soothing ways you can bring home the power of bees.

It was nearly 20 years ago, in 2006, when US beekeepers began to report that worker bees were disappearing, fleeing their nests, queens and even their own larvae seemingly without explanation.

Soon, word began to spread about the collapse of colonies and what it would mean to the world if this carried on: without our pollinators, we won’t have plants. Without plants, we risk our air, water, food and medicine—you know, the big things.

“Did you hear about the bees?” Neighbours in their gardens, trowels in hand, spoke over fences about the problem. Some American honeybee hives lost 30 to 90 per cent of their colonies. Gone.

What did it? The list of threats against the survival of bees is long, and growing. Among the most pressing are climate change, loss of habitat, invasive plants, low genetic diversity, diseases spread by industrial bees, and pesticides. In the year of the vanishing bees, studies now suggest that last threat, pesticides—specifically, the agrochemical neonicotinoids—was likely the major factor that caused bees to flee. Turns out neonicotinoids, a class of insecticides, grow plants with toxic pollen.