The Honeybee: A False Idol?

Thanks to recent media attention, most of us don’t need telling about the importance of bees and their plight in the modern world.  Along with other pollinating insects, they are responsible for providing us with one third of our crop types from plums to pecans and peppers to pulses, a voluntary workforce that pollinates 80% of wild plants in Europe¹ and is worth over £500 million of crop production a year to the UK alone². Humans have rewarded them poorly with a combination of pressures including poisoning with pesticides, infection with imported diseases and destruction of their homes through habitat loss, causing terrible declines in their numbers.

Bees have climbed the PR ladder from a perceived stinging nuisance to some of the world’s most famous and cherished ambassadors for insect kind. So great has public support been for these insects that the UK government has taken a stand by passing the National Pollinator Strategy in November 2014. The realisation of the importance of bees to human wellbeing, and the impacts of humans on bee wellbeing have made bees poster children for the environment,  our reliance and our impacts on the natural systems that support us.

But there is confusion over the exact identity of this pollinator poster child. The classic image of a bee is the yellow-and black striped, dumpy flier of children’s drawings, resembling many Bumblebees. Popular culture has presented these friendly, fuzzy insects as the filler of our honey jars, fostering the perception of ‘the bee’ as a single, honey-making entity.

In truth there are lots of types of bee and only the balder, more wasp-like honeybee makes the sweetness that fills our shelves.  This confusion of two familiar kinds of bee means that ‘bee’ and ‘honeybee’ are often given the same meaning.  Many newspaper, magazine and online articles on bee declines and conservation make this mistake, creating further confusion by leading to the belief that reversing pollinator declines is all about protecting our honeybees.

An otherwise pleasing advert for Kellog’s honey cornflakes wrongly depicts bumblebees as the workers producing the honey. Bumblebees do not produce true honey.

Getting it half right. One third of our crop types rely on pollinators, but not solely on honeybees as is often suggested.

This idea is perpetuated by many beekeepers, keen to preach the virtue of their charges (though unfortunately few know much about the honeybee’s wild cousins). This bias even reaches the official level; The UK’s first Bee Summit was mainly focused on the honeybee and industry tests on the effects of pesticides on pollinators are only performed on honeybees. In reality, honeybees are only a small part of the big picture. The true situation is well illustrated in this video by DEFRA for The National Pollinator Strategy
 

So the idea of a single bee species is incorrect, but what does this mean for the protection of our pollinators and our food supply? There are three main issues with the idolisation of the honeybee above its relatives:

1.UK Honeybees are a single species amongst many

There are several species of honeybee, but only one lives in the UK, the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera)*. This is not a species of conservation concern (i.e. it is not particularly threatened). Compare this to their British neighbours, 25 Bumblebees (7 of conservation concern) and around 260 diverse and little-known solitary bees (64 of conservation concern)³. Bees are also just part of at least 1500 species of pollinating insects in the UK⁴. The honeybee is far outnumbered by other species with radically different lifestyles, habitat requirements and flower preferences which need taking into account if we are to conserve our pollinator task force. 

* Only one honeybee subspecies, the Black bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) is a UK native and is receiving recent attention as it has some resistance against the devastating Varroa mite. Most UK honeybees are a complex of continental subspecies bred for their honey yields.

The ‘Busy Bees and their Cousins’ by Maude Scrivener illustrates the diversity of Britain’s bees including the Honeybee (Bottom right), Bumblebees, Leafcutter bee, Nomad bees (middle) and other solitary bees (Alongside two ichneumon wasps in the upper right corner).

 

2.       Honeybees are resilient to change

Honeybee colonies live throughout the winter, survive for several years and the tens of thousands of worker bees in the nest buffers their colonies against hardship. If conditions are poor one year, they can bounce back over the following one so long as they have a fertile queen to ensure the next generation. Moreover they can search for food over many miles if flowers are in locally short supply. 
 By contrast, all wild bees have annual life cycles. Each year is a new generation and a new nest.  They also have less insurance against hardship. Bumblebee nests have only a few hundred, or even tens of workers to support the colony and most solitary bees act as single mothers with the female taking sole responsibility for building the nest and providing for her offspring. If they have a bad year, numbers drastically decline.

Solitary bees are particularly sensitive, since they usually have short adult lifespans, fly only a few hundred meters from the nest and often rely on specific flower types, even down to a single plant species.  If a wildflower meadow is so much as cut or grazed at the wrong time of year, entire populations can be lost. Our endangered bumblebees also rely on certain flowers, mainly legumes (plants in the pea family) such as clover which provide protein-rich pollen for their larvae, alongside other perennial plants which need sensitive management. Honeybees do need a variety of flowers to support them throughout the year, but they have no such specialisms.

In addition, solitary bees and bumblebees usually have no help whatsoever in their struggle for survival, but most UK honeybees enjoy all the luxuries of domestication. Beekeepers build their hives, supplement their diet with sugar syrup and treat their ills. In some cases, their colonies are moved to pastures new to pollinate flowering crops, ensuring a ready food supply, whilst wild bees are left to eke a living on the sparse wildflowers at the field edges. This is the most important distinction between the honeybee and its wild cousins. 


Left: The majority of UK honeybee colonies are tended by Beekeepers in Hives (Image by Migco-wikimedia commons). Right: Other bees are not hive dwellers. Many solitary bees (here a Lasioglossum sp.) dig nest holes in the ground, which they construct and tend all on their own (Photo © by author).

Of course, beekeepers have their fingers on the pulse when it comes to flower provisions in the landscape and the common challenges their colonies are facing with wild bees, but honeybee numbers are partly dependent on the human efforts of their beekeepers, not just the state of the environment. We must look to conserving habitats for our wild bees.

3.       Honeybees are not super-pollinators

Honeybees are undoubtedly hard-working pollinators, since they must visit around two million flowers for each pound of honey⁵, but they are not the sole providers of our crops as is often implied. Several research projects have attempted to find out exactly how much different pollinators contribute to our food supply and the ecosystem. A Global study found that around 2% of bee species pollinate 80% of world crops and wild bees contribute just as much as honeybees to crop pollination⁶(Still an impressive effort from the honeybees!). Other studies have shown that when it comes to bearing fruit, honeybees are no substitute for our wild pollinators⁷. The wild Red mason bee for example is 120 times more efficient on apple blossoms than the honeybee⁸, and on strawberries, a combination of bee species feeding from different parts of the composite flowers creates larger, better-formed and tastier fruit⁹!
In terms of wild flowers, a study found honeybees lag far behind their wild cousins, visiting less than 5% of flowers in an ancient haymeadow, compared to over 30% visited by wild bees which were the top pollinators¹⁰.

This has more important implications than deriding honeybees.  It shows that we must preserve our wildflower-rich habitats to support our wild pollinator diversity if we want our fields and orchards to be fruitful.

So why are these other species so much better at pollinating? The reasons are twofold.
 Firstly, though the honeybee has many amazing adaptations for its lifestyle and visits at least 75 crop types worldwide, it simply doesn’t have the kit to deal with every flower type. Many flower shapes are adapted for specific pollinators to help ensure their pollen isn’t wasted on unrelated plants.
Take the bumblebees. They have the unique ability to “buzz pollinate”, vibrating their bodies using their wing muscles to release pollen, a technique essential for the tightly-clasped stamens of the tomato family and poppies (Every tomato, pepper and chilli you’ve eaten is pollinated by bumblebees).  Long-tongued bumblebees triumph on deep flowers such as Foxgloves with nectaries unreachable to other species.

But the honeybee does put its tools to good use. Perhaps too good! This is the second issue. The relationship between plants and pollinators is not as cosy as you might think. Bees are excellent pollen-collectors, but they have a vested interest to return it to the nest as food rather than transfer it between plants.  Since it has to provide for thousands of hungry larvae and other workers, the honeybee has become the peak of pollen-gathering efficiency. It gathers pollen into ‘baskets’ on its legs, stuck together with nectar and saliva, carrying little wastage on its nearly hairless abdomen. This leaves little loose pollen to drop onto and fertilise the next flower.
By contrast, solitary bees (Such as the Red mason bee) are rather messier since they only need enough pollen to stock one nest cell at a time. Instead of a basket of bristles, solitary bees have legs and/or abdomens coated in shaggy, branched hairs like a brush. The grains are not stuck together so easily drop off onto the next flower, leading to more efficient pollination.

The Honeybee (Left) is an efficient pollen-gatherer, packing it neatly into ‘baskets’ stuck to its legs. This Early mining bee (Andrena haemorrhoa) (Right) is a more efficient pollinator, brushing pollen loosely onto its hairy legs, from which it more easily drops off onto other flowers and fertilises them. Photos by ©Lamia textor (agrilus.blogspot.co.uk)

To wrap things up..

This article isn’t intended to demean the honeybee or beekeepers, rather it is to put the honeybee in context with its relatives and other pollinators. The honeybee is an amazing and incredible insect in its own right. Beekeepers share this fascination .Their knowledge, dedication and observation can tell us a great deal about the state of our pollinators and contribute to the passionate support our bees so desperately need. My father is a beekeeper and the fascinating honeybee contributed greatly to my appreciation of insects.

The take home lesson is that we shouldn’t solely idolise the honeybee. It is neither the ‘best’ pollinator nor the most reliable indicator of our environment. The honeybee shares its pollinator pedestal with a great variety of other species equally deserving of our appreciation if not more so and we need to conserve our flower-rich habitats to support this variety. It is important that we diversity of bee species and their needs, and act to protect the environment on which they depend in ways that help them,  rather than fixating on the hive dwelling honeybee, both for the sake of bees and our food supply.

Think bees, not bee.

Want to explore the diversity of Britain’s bees? Visit the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society (BWARS) and Steven Falk’s Flickr collection.

Learn more about bees and how to help them with Buglife the Bumblebee conservation Trust and Hymettus. You can help to understand the state of Britain’s bumblebees by becoming a Beewalker , and help bees and other pollinators in your garden by making a Pollinator Pledge.

References

1-Buglife. (2014) Get Britain Buzzing: A Manifesto for Pollinators. https://www.buglife.org.uk/sites/default/files/Pollinator%20manifesto%20with%20covers_1.pdf

2- Breeze,T.D. et al (2012) The Decline of England’s Bees: Policy Review and Recommendations http://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/beesreport.pdf

3-JNCC. (2007) UK BAP priority terrestrial invertebrate species. http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-5169#insects

4-DEFRA. (2014) The National Pollinator Strategy: for bees and other pollinators in England. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/409431/pb14221-national-pollinators-strategy.pdf

5- National Honey Board. Honey Trivia .http://www.honey.com/newsroom/press-kits/honey-trivia

6- Kleijn,D et al. (2015) Delivery of crop pollination services is an insufficient argument for wild pollinator conservation. Nature Communications, 6. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150616/ncomms8414/full/ncomms8414.html

7-Garibaldi,L.A. et al. (2013) Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance. Science, 339 (6127) 1608-1611. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6127/1608.abstract

8-AHDB Horticulture. Apple Best Practice Guide. http://apples.hdc.org.uk/agronomy-pollination-additional-information.asp


9-Chagnon,M. et al. (1993) Complementary Aspects of Strawberry Pollination by Honey and Indigenous Bees (Hymenoptera). Journal of Economic Entomology, 86(2)416-420.
http://jee.oxfordjournals.org/content/86/2/416

10- Dicks,L.V. et al. (2002) Compartmentalization in plant–insect flower visitor webs. Journal of Animal Ecology 71, 32-43 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.0021-8790.2001.00572.x/full

Ecogeeks in Africa-Part 2

For Part 1 of the summary of my Kenya Conservation Policy trip with the University of Exeter go here.

Kenya’s mountains and lowland wetlands may seem far removed, but together they provide the country's water resources. The Malewa and Gilgil rivers run from Mount Kenya and the Aberdare mountains down to the great lakes. We visited two of these lakes, Naivasha and Nakuru, the Mara River on the southern border and Mount Kenya.

1-Kenya's wetlands

We stayed on the shores of Lake Naivasha at Fisherman’s Camp. Here we felt truly immersed in the wildlife, as we were camping in a forest with views across the lake.  Ugly and intimidating Marabou storks paced through the camp for scraps, lovebirds nested in a dead tree, fish eagles swooped over and colobus monkeys browsed in the canopy which was alive with small birds. At night we watched hippos grazing the banks, separated only by a flimsy electric fence.  When the opportunity came, we took boat trips around the blue waters to take in the lakes birdlife. 

Birdwatching at Fisherman's camp. Some birds are clearly more exciting than others.Photo by author.

In its vastness, Naivasha appeared serene until we realised that the green carpet of water hyacinth covering the surface is a non-native species, the lake level is dropping thanks to abstraction by various users and the water is being polluted by agricultural runoff. The natural community is changing due to the dominance of invasive waterplants and stocking with tilapia, carp, and crayfish which have driven the lakes one native fish (Aplocheilichihys antinoni) to extinction .

One of the biggest lake water users are flower farms, two of which we visited  (a nursery and a cut flower supplier). The farms are vast, with 7 hectare greenhouses for each plant variety, and impressive technology controlling the watering systems.  It may surprise you that most cut flowers you can buy in a British supermarket come from these Kenyan farms.  To quote some figures, the farms produce a third of the global cut flower demand, using about 40% of all water extracted from the lake, some of which is then exported out of the country as “virtual water” within the flowers . However the employment of over 50,000 people (many of which are educated women) and a 7% contribution to Kenya’s  export market means the issue is not clear-cut.

One of the vast greenhouses of roses for export. Photo by author.

Environmental laws have encouraged the farms to reduce their water footprint. Measures include increasing their use of hydroponics (allowing more efficient watering), recycling water and fertiliser, and treatment of waste pesticides with settling ponds. These are steps in the right direction, but their actual impact was difficult to separate from propaganda during our talks with the staff.

Fortunately there is an organisation ensuring the flower farms do not get free reign. They are the Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA) who allocate water across the whole catchment. The Local Manager, Mercy Kendi explained how WRMA is essentially a cooperative of water users, from small-scale mountain farmers to major agricultural exporters, and was set up in response to conflicts between them. In the past, pastoralists angered by the diversion of water from their land, took to smashing farmer's pipes. Now WRMA avoids these conflicts by sharing water fairly between users, whilst ensuring the rivers stay running for wildlife. The motivation for joining WRMA? Taking water anywhere away from a non-WRMA controlled extraction point is a fineable offence. In addition to water allocation, WRMA also maintains riverine habitats e.g. by imposing buffer strips and helping communities restore banks by tree planting.

To illustrate just how much training they do on the ground, Mercy directed us to one of their members, a small-scale farmer on the slope of Mount Kenya. His farm was every hippy’s dream of self-sufficiency, whilst making money on the side from export crops. His crops were drip-fed for efficiency, ponds stored water in which he cultured fish, excess runoff watered his livestock feed in the bottom corner and his cows in turn provided slurry for the crops. Wild canaries singing in the trees, a large chameleon in the hedge and buzzing flower chafers joining his own honeybees around the fruit blossoms added to the image of Eden.

Our next stop, an intensive vegetable farm, could not have been a starker contrast.  Millitary rows of green beans and broccoli stretching to the horizon, watered by gigantic, GPS- guided booms on wheels, spraying out water that seemed to soak our faces more than the ground. This is one of the UK’s major sources of winter green vegetables, including most of the tenderstem broccoli in supermarkets. It undoubtedly generates a lot of employment and money, but at what environmental cost? For one, they did not adhere to WRMA, gaining extra water allowances from the Government. Whatever your stance on healthy eating, Broccoli World is not a place to take the kids.

Broccoli world aka Kenya seed farm. Photo by author.

After that experience, it was refreshing to get back to the wildlife, and Lake Nakuru National Park was the perfect antidote. The lake here is saline, and is famous for attracting vast flocks of lesser flamingos which feed on the algae that thrives in the salty water (Naivasha is unusual in the region for being freshwater). Unfortunately, the high rainfall that made the savannahs so green had flooded and diluted the lake so there were few flamingos. However, with over 50 bird species seen in one morning along with a leopard and a black rhino we weren’t complaining! A quick trip up to Baboon cliffs also gave us an incredible view of the lake.

The diverse waterbird community on the banks of lake Nakuru. Photo by author.

The view across Lake Nakuru from Baboon Cliffs. Photo by author.

The reserve was an excellent setting for a talk from Edward Kariuki of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). He told us how KWS is striving to modernise its values and workforce, but like all conservation bodies is short of resources. It was good to hear that they were adopting an ecosystem approach rather than focussing on a few charismatic species, though some like rhino and elephant obviously have their own action plans.  He told us with enthusiasm about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s support of conservation. So far he has forged cooperation between KWS and Kenya Forest Service, and has passed the Wildlife Conservation Management Act 2013 imposing serious penalties on poaching.

Towards the end of our trip we encountered the Mara river, famous crossing place of migrating wildebeest. The bones littering the banks attested to this. I was itching to see the infamous Nile Crocodiles and was not disappointed as we had a guided crocodile and hippo walk along the banks. A mother hippo and young calf and a Nile monitor were added bonuses.

We saw (or rather heard) another river character on our first day lodging near Nairobi. Check out the guttural toad, a little amphibian with a big voice.

The mating call of the aptly named Guttural toad. Video by author.

Wildlife of Kenya’s wetlands. Left to Right: Wet Savannas, standing freshwater, rivers, saline lakes.
(1)Sausage tree (2)Grey crowned crane (3)Bohor reedbuck (4) Yellow-billed stork (5) Marabou stork (6) Garman’s toad (7) Hadada ibis (8) Blacksmith lapwing (9) Water hyacinth (10) Louisiana crayfish (11) Mascarene rocket frog (12) Hammerkop (13) African jacana (14) African short-clawed otter (15) Hippopotamus (16) Marsh harrier (17) Barn swallow (18) Long-toed lapwing, (19) Purple Swamphen (20) Squacco heron (21) Long-tailed cormorant (22) Malachite kingfisher  (23)Purple heron (24)Pied kingfisher  (25)Tacazze sunbird (26) Sacred ibis (27) Egyptian goose (28) Papyrus (29) Black crake (30) Clubrush (31) Water lilly (32)Guttural toad (33) Nile crocodile (34) Yellow fever-tree (35) Yellow wagtail (36) African spoonbill (37) Nile monitor (38) Sedge (39) Kittlitz’s plover (40) Black-winged stilt (41) Hottentot teal (42) Red-knobbed coot (43) African openbill (44) Common waterbuck (45) Lesser flamingo (46) Greater flamingo (47) Great cormorant (48) White pelican (49) Grey-headed gull (50) African Fish eagle.

At  our camp in Olare Orok conservancy, we experienced a flash flood (thankfully from a safe distance) when the calm low-flow of the stream turned into a roaring torrent overnight. Our earlier walk through the gorge at Hell’s Gate showed the power of these floods, which have carved the sandstone rockface where usually only trickling streams flow through. The floods have created such a striking landscape it has featured as a setting in a Tomb Raider film and inspired the stampede scene in The Lion King.

Views of the Hell's Gate gorge. Photographs by Tori Jeffers (Left) and Vicki Baldwin (Right), used with permission.

There is also something special about the springs in Hell’s Gate. They run hot from underground reservoirs in contact with volcanic activity near the surface. Once deemed mystical, the power is now harnessed for energy generation. There are 2 geothermal plants in Hell’s gate, generating 167 megawatts of electricity. This is ‘renewable ‘ energy, but with emissions of sulphur making an eggy stink around the plants, and fluoride in the waste water. Perhaps most concerning is that they are built within a national park, where developments are usually banned. There are strict environmental measures in place, such as containment of outflows, reinjection of waste water into the reservoirs, and regular toxicology monitoring of plants and soil around the stations, but we still found a burst steam pipe and an uncontrolled, steaming outflow.

Part of the Olkerai geothermal powerplant in Hell's Gate. Not something you'd expect so see in a National Park. Photograph by Tori Jeffers, used with permission.

2-Mount Kenya

Most of Kenya’s water comes from a much colder source, the glaciers of Mount Kenya. Scrambling up to these was beyond our means, but we still managed to hike 5,340m up the mountainside. This took us through several unique vegetation zones.
From the park entrance, the towering, twisted trunks of Podocarp trees loomed above the dusty track, home to red-fronted parrots, Hartlaub's touracos and the bulbous nests of mason wasps. From here we went into the cool green of the bamboo zone where we walked paths cleared by elephants through the dense stems.

At the base camp for climbers (3048m) we were greeted by a confiding troop of Syke’s monkeys. This mainly herbivorous primate specialises in eking out a living at altitudes other monkeys cannot, though this particular group was used to tourist handouts. Other specialities we found  included the delicate pink Mount Kenya violet, The Mount Kenya fritillary butterfly (a subspecies of Hannington’s fritillary) and club moss, a rare type of plant that predates the dinosaurs.

Some Mount Kenya flora. Top: Mount Kenya violet, unidentified Geranium, Sunburst.
Bottom:Cabbage groundsel, Club moss. Photos by author.

From the open basecamp we ascended into the shady, primeval rosewood forest. The boughs of these thickset hardwood trees drooped with mosses and ferns, whilst the rich vegetation below is the native home of some familiar garden plants such as the red-hot poker Kniphofia ,Lobelias and Nasturtium as well as oddly familiar docks, nettles, brambles and a purple clover. A verdant temperate rainforest.
The furry face of a tree hyrax peeked out of a tree hollow. These strange mammals look like a cross between a guinea pig and a lap dog (but are related to elephants!). At night back at our camp in Naru Muro they kept us awake with their hilariously horrendous “singing” .

As we reached the final zone of our journey, the forest graded into trees of a different kind, giant heathers! Whilst this zone is boggy with runoff, the heaths are prone to fire and we entered this beautifully surreal landscape of charred trees and emerald mossy ground. This is the home of Kenya’s famous giant rosette plants. Most had burned away but we still saw young Giant lobelias, the tall yellow flower spikes of Cabbage groundsel and the occasional blood red Gladiolus. The view from here to the Aberdare mountains was spectacular and well worth the climb. We returned to camp exhausted, but glowing from the experience and the sunshine.

Vegetation zones of Mount Kenya. Podocarp forest (Top left), Bamboo zone (Top right) Rosewood/Timberline Forest (Bottom left),Heath. Photos by author.

 
I’ve done the best I can to recount this amazing and enlightening adventure to inform some and remind others. Great thanks are due to the people who made it all possible. The staff who informed, entertained and herded us, Dr Dave Hodgson and Dr Caitlin Knight (Biosciences), Dr Chris Laing (Geography), Amanda Scott (Nature writer) and Enoch Mobisa (Researcher and Alumni of the University of Exeter), who provided invaluable insights and observations on the trip. Also to our friendly and enthusiastic drivers and excellent cooks from Africa Journeys, to the variety of expert officials who talked to us, and of course to all my coursemates (Especially everyone else from the  Big 3, the only bus to see both a leopard and a lion cub!) I could not have asked for better company.

And another thing to add to the Big 3's achievements, was having the longest species list! We did have two amateur entomologists and someone familiar with the birds of the bush after all. Our prize was an enamelled mug each. Ironically the logo on the Falcon cup appears to be a harrier.

The Kenya Species Cup and other souvenirs.