World Bee Day: How Buzzing Bugs Help the Environment We Love to Explore
May 20 is recognized as World Bee Day by the UN.
Initially put forward by the Government of Slovenia, the goal is to shine a spotlight on the role pollinators play in keeping people and the planet healthy and to address the challenges they face today.
To the human eye, bees’ efforts are almost invisible. Flying from flower to flower, bees collect nectar and pollen. Trapped in the fuzz of their chubby little bodies, this provides critical flower pollination.
Bees are important members of the natural ecosystem, but very few of us truly understand the scale of their impact. So here are some numbers: over 90 per cent of the world’s food comes from crop species and 70 per cent of these species are pollinated by bees. This pollination service is essential for edible plants and for livestock nutrition. In essence, this means that about a third of the human diet, directly or indirectly, comes from insect-pollinated plants.
“I find bees truly amazing,” says William Roman, beekeeper and general manager at Rosewood Estates Winery and Meadery in Lincoln, Ontario. “They create incredibly complex ecosystems… a lot can be learned from the hives. I think that’s why people get attracted to bees, their communal and hard-working nature.”
Roman is a third-generation beekeeper. His grandfather came to Canada from Ukraine with a dream of owning a honey wine business. Now, Rosewood Estates, one of Niagara’s most scenic wineries, offers a front-row seat to the daily routine of a western honeybee (a.k.a. the Apis Mellifera).
According to Paul Kelly, research and apiary manager at the Honey Bee Research Centre in Guelph (HBRC), honey bees make up 80 per cent of the required food pollination. The Roman family houses about 300 honey bee hives, split between a forest behind the winery and Oro-Medonte, Ontario. Being active members of the beekeeping community, they also often look for opportunities to place hives on local farms.
“Climate change, land use patterns, parasites, pesticides and pathogens are among many threats bees face globally,” says Kelly. Many of these issues cause Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a phenomenon that occurs when the majority of the worker bees in a colony disappear.
A sustainable approach to keeping bees healthy requires minimal to no chemical use. Rosewood’s integrated pest management recipe includes the use of oxalic acid and sticky mite pads inside the hives. A naturally occurring compound found in many plants, oxalic acid distributed in vapour form is harmless to the bees but really bothers the mites, so they unlatch themselves from the bees and drop to the bottom on the sticky pads.
When talking about bees, Roman speaks of them with the respect for a dear neighbour. “As beekeepers, we consider ourselves veterinarians–we’re taking care of the bees in order for them to have healthy, happy homes to produce honey in.” This new wave of beekeepers operates with a gentler approach, treating the hives with respect, leaving a portion of honey (the bees’ food source) behind and creating organic environments they can thrive in. “When you treat bees with respect, they overwinter better, they are healthier, less disease-prone and make a good, healthy crop. And that’s a more sustainable way of keeping bees.”
Each spring, Rosewood Estates hosts a campaign encouraging landowners to let their grass go to seed. Dandelions, for example, are the first flower of the season and a crucial food source for the bees. “So we don’t cut our grass and encourage other people to do the same,” Roman says.
Creating environments where bees can thrive is as simple as letting nature take its course, and that’s exactly what Ludmila Haynos-Owen, owner-operator of Lavender-Blu hobby farm and artisan studio in North Durham, has done.
“When we purchased the property, I knew that I wanted to create a space of diversity for the wildlife,” she shared. Ludmila approached this project through a scholarly lens, learning from European gardens and consulting the researchers at the HBRC.
The only maintained portion of the farm is the lavender garden. The rest of the property, seeded with native plants, trees and shrubs, goes through its natural lifecycle as a “messy garden.” At the heart of this farm is an insect hotel—a hexagon-shaped structure built with reclaimed wood by a local artist, Steve Hoover. This sculpture serves as a home to a wide range of insects and specifically as a safe haven to the native solitary bees.
She treats the guest tours as an opportunity to gently educate visitors, especially children, about the value of insects within nature’s ecosystem. “Fear comes from not knowing, and with knowing comes respect,” Haynos-Owen commented.
Similarly, Rosewood Winery invites guests to learn about the bees through a guided experience, beekeeper suit and all. Sharing bee knowledge with the public is seen as high value by the Roman family, because, “in essence, bees feed everybody.”
Keeping Peace with the Bees on the Trails
Bees are busy bodies and generally keep to themselves. Unless disturbed or threatened, they are unlikely to attack, so the main way to avoid interactions with bees is by keeping away from flower patches and bee hives. Solitary bees nest in the crevices of deadwood, tree trunks and soil patches, all of which typically exist away from the trails. The basic rule of thumb is: if you hear buzzing, steer away from that area and avoid setting up camp close to a flowering field.
Bee hives on established trails might be marked by flagging tape or even listed in AllTrails. If you spot a hive, do your best to warn other hikers by marking the spot (at a 100-metre distance), by adding a note to AllTrails and notifying the park rangers. Keeping the bee habitat undisturbed is vital for the environment.
Naturally, bees are attracted to anything that reminds them of flowers: bright colours, sugar and floral, fruity scents. Bee experts strongly advise against wearing bright clothing, strong floral perfumes and to always cover up your sweet foods. Campfire is a useful tool for repelling bees while insect repellents do very little for wasps and bees. If unsure of the bee activity in the area, you can set up a fruity sugar water bath at a safe distance as a distraction.
How to Tell Bees from Wasps
Bees can only bite you once if disrupted, while wasps, in my experience, will come after you like an organized army. From a distance, the two insects look quite similar, but there are a few easy-to-spot differences:
- Bees have two sets of wings overlapping across their backs while wasps’ wings lie closer to their abdomen
- Bees are very hairy; their coats collect pollen for transport. Wasps, on the other hand, have short, hardly noticeable fluff
- Bee bodies are wider with stout legs while wasps have elongated bodies with a pointed rear
