I have been hard at work lately trying to convert a half-acre of lawn into a flourishing pollinator garden at home. Basically, this has involved sowing some seeds and letting it grow. I think I like this approach to gardening maintenance because I get so much more time to lounge by the pool, contentedly sipping a cold beverage while calmly cherishing the buzz of my very own pollinator flora and fauna.
I know that by now you must have heard about the decline in the Honey Bee populations and how much of a threat that may pose to our food production, but unfortunately those headlines only tell half the story and to my great dismay, they often completely sidestep the real issue: that we need to be concerned about ALL pollinator populations and not just the commercially managed ones.
The Honey Bee (known in Latin as Apis mellifera) is an introduced species from Europe that is largely incapable of naturalizing in Canada because they can鈥檛 survive our harsh winters throughout most of the country. As such, they only really exist here as managed colonies by fruit and vegetable farmers or apiculturists (bee farmers) for the pollination services and to harvest the yummy honey that the bees provide. Because this species is so easy to manage, is reasonably docile for a stinging insect and produces a rich bounty of melliferous syrup, it is estimated that Honey Bees are involved in the pollination of around a third of our food crops. Of course, it would be an economic and nutritional catastrophe if we were to lose Honey Bees from our fauna from one day to the next.
The exact causes of the recent Honey Bee decline, or Colony Collapse Disorder, is not known, although neonicotinoid pesticides are suspected to be at play. While we would certainly be prudent to be cautious about using the neonics, they are more likely to be the straw that broke the camel鈥檚 back, rather than the smoking gun in this case. Honey Bees that are managed commercially for agricultural pollination have been experiencing health problems for decades, in part as a consequence of the hives being reared in industrial conditions and transported from farm to farm. As social animals, Honey Bees get easily stressed and one consequence of that is a weakening of their immune systems, making them more prone to infection by disease and attack by parasites.
This combination of large-scale apiculture and our reliance on it for our agricultural pollination is clearly an unsustainable approach to providing this essential ecosystem service in farming and therein lies my argument that we are missing the 鈥榩ollination point鈥� by focusing so much of our attention on one single iconic bee species. The fact is that most measures of biodiversity over the past several decades show sharp declines in many populations of pollinators, not just of the Honey Bee. These decreases in the native pollinator biodiversity are for many of the same reasons as those seen in the Honey Bee, such as a loss of habitat and the use of pesticides, but also because of the spread of exotic diseases and pests, one of the perils of pollinating in a globalized world.
The pollination of flowers by insects is not limited to our food production, and it represents a key ecosystem function in plant reproduction and the maintenance of natural habitats. Clearly pollination is a crucial process, both to human sustainability and to the integrity of nature itself. Considering that almost 90% of the approximately 400,000 species of flowering plants in the world are pollinated by animals (mostly insects), it seems strange indeed that we are so captivated by the fate of one single species of bee.
Insect pollinators come in many shapes and forms, many MANY shapes and forms. In fact, there are over 20,000 species of bees in the world, 1000 of which are in Canada. This large Super-Family of insects (called Apoidea in Latin) includes the Honey Bee, but also Bumble Bees, Mining Bees, Sweat Bees, Digger Bees etc. To most people, these bees (other than Honey and Bumble ones) go unnoticed... but they are out there. However, there are also other important groups of insect pollinators, including the Hover Flies, the ones that look like bees and wasps in order to fool their predators into leaving them alone at the flowers. There may be another 1000 species of these effective pollinating flies in Canada alongside the bees. This is not to mention the butterflies and beetles that act as important pollinators of Canadian flowering plants as well.
With so many species of potential insect pollinators around, you would think it unnecessary to go to the trouble of hiring or raising managed Honey Bees around farms to ensure the pollination of our crops. Unfortunately, the native pollinators are often notably absent from where they are needed most due to a number of practices all too common in large-scale agricultural farms. Conventional farming typically goes hand-in-hand with a large acreage of monoculture crops that facilitate planting, weeding and harvesting but that leave no room for wildlife to live nearby. Add to that the widespread use of pesticides that impact insect pollinators and pests alike, we can see how the use of managed pollinators becomes a must when there is no way for a native one to survive.
However, it has been shown, through my own research and that of others, that if the populations of native biodiversity of pollinators around farms are healthy, then they may be able to provide all the pollination services required for the crop production and that the costly use of managed pollinators may be unnecessary. This is true even for crops that have a high demand for pollination, such as watermelon.
For these reasons and more, we are being urged to provide habitat and food for our dear pollinators and I鈥檓 pleased to be doing my part. Having done my Ph.D. in pollination ecology, I know that there are many pollinators out there and that they each have their own specific needs from my garden. In particular, different kinds of pollinators feed on different kinds of flowers, relationships that are mostly dictated by the kinds of mouthparts on the insect and the shape and depth of the floral tube or corolla. Generally speaking, bees and butterflies have long probing tongues and favour flowers that have deep bell- or tube-shaped corollas, whereas flies and beetles have short and lapping mouthparts, requiring open or bowl-shaped flowers for them to be able to feed on pollen and nectar within.
As a consequence, a committed pollinator gardener will find that it is important to think carefully about what flowers to plant and to ensure enough floral diversity to feed the whole pollinator community. For this reason, when I saw that a local organization in support of bees () was mailing out free packages of seeds for planting in pollinator gardens, I jumped at the chance to add to the habitat in my backyard. To my surprise, when the seeds arrived I discovered that the plant species included were specifically chosen only to feed Honey Bees.
Perhaps you will understand my frustration in noting that once again, the real issue had been overlooked and that our pollinator problem is not simply a Honey Bee one. When we are planting our pollinator gardens, we need to be thinking more about the conservation of native pollinators, not the managed ones.
Sure the apiculture industry has some challenges to work out, but wildflower habitat is not their principal concern.... it may very well be a top priority for the conservation of native pollinators though. Research has shown that if we reintroduce habitat for pollinators, including flowers but also nesting and overwintering sites, refuge from the weather and predators and other important features of habitat for native insect biodiversity, that they respond favourably to that and their populations increase.
My pollinator garden will certainly not be one that favours Honey Bees over any others. For me if it鈥檚 to be a proper pollinator garden it will not just have to be all about the bees, but about ALL of the bees (... and the flies, and the butterflies, and the beetles...).
