Our bees are not happy. There’s an epidemic going around, wiping out entire colonies. The disease is called “colony collapse disorder”, and it’s turned out to be a nasty bug imported from Australia, but the situation is not that simple. Our bees are stressed, and it’s making them vulnerable to disease. 

The problem, like so many others, can be laid at the feet of industrial agriculture. Instead of the traditional practice of planting a variety of crops together, large scale agriculture practices monoculture, growing vast swaths of individual plants. Bees, like humans, thrive on a wide range of foods. They like having pollen from many different flowers. Asking them to pollinate a field with only one kind of plant is like asking you or me to eat only pasta, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It takes a toll on your health. 

Bees are important to us because, for one thing, they’re incredible creatures with a complex social system, part of the planet’s natural genetic diversity. They also create a variety of foods, like honey, bee pollen, and propolis, some of which have medicinal uses. Bees pollinate many important food crops, spreading genetic material as they feed among flowering plants. In fact, billions of dollars worth of agricultural crops in this country, like almonds and onions, are pollinated by bees, and the current epidemic puts our supply of these foods at risk, and raises their prices. Because industrial agriculture is so intensive, growers hire beekeepers to bring hives in trucks to pollinate their crops. This, too, is stressful for the bees. 

Some of our local beekeepers have fared better than others. Sam, from Zane and Zack Honey Company lost most of his bees this year. Jerry, from Eagleman Farms, had a rough year as well and is thinking of going back to raising chickens. Roy, from Tahuya River Apiaries, has fared better. He attributes it to the fact that he raises his bees at a high altitude, away from the pesticides and commercial crops found at lower elevations. 

If you’d like to do something to help the bees, you can plant wildflowers wherever you have the space, creating a hospitable environment for them. Burt’s Bees will send you a free packet, if you sign up on their website. And don’t forget to shop at your local farmers’ market. Support small scale beekeepers and small scale farmers, who offer the bees—and the rest of us--a friendly habitat.