Seen a Bee Lately?

Well have you?

My chimney has always been a bizarre hive-magnet. Like clockwork every spring bees moved in as if their only purpose in this life was the singular intention to scare the living hell out of me by spinning an ominous droning hum inside my fireplace grate, like teeny tiny cultists chanting as they waited to steal my soul out of my mouth while I was sleeping. Also, bees would crawl out of the fireplace grate and swarm over it and my patio door handle purposely so that when I'd come home from work I'd first look with dread to see whether or not they were writhing all over the fireplace (they were) and then I'd run to the door to shoo them out hoping the handle wasn't covered and similarly writhing (it was) and decide whether to spend the afternoon trapped inside, miserably huddling by the door, waiting for them to fly off (I would).

I swear to God, Candyman, I did not say your name. Now will you please just go. I'm supposed to get a pedicure later. 

That's a lot, bees. That's a lot to ask. I'm on your side but that's really a pretty big violation of my personal space.

Somewhere in the last few years the bee-chimney occupations ended without me really realizing it. I was just grateful not to come home to little crawling, flying, stinging machines. I've never really returned to trusting bees after they killed Macaulay Culkin in "My Girl."

"Where are his glasses? He can't see without his glasses!"
*ugly cry* Why, cruel world? Why!?

Makes sense that I stopped seeing bees nesting in my chimney around 2013 because in the six years leading up to that, more than 10 million beehives were lost, nearly twice normal rates, to, among other things, a phenomenon scientists are calling Colony Collapse Disorder. Basically, for no known reason, the adult worker bees just pick up and take off, leaving behind a queen and plenty of food. It's sad, actually; there's often capped off baby bees waiting to hatch, sugar syrup all warm and waiting, and the queen, of course, waiting forever for her knights to return. Without sufficient worker bees the colony can't sustain itself and the bees die.

Scientists started noticing the disappearance of bees in 2006; by 2008 the loss was at around 35% in the European Union, 40% in the United States. Theories abounded: pesticides, varroa mites, habitat destruction, environmental stresses, malnutrition were all suspected contributing factors to the decline of bees in some combination. In 2012, European scientists published several independent peer-reviewed studies showing that neonicotinoids (basically a nicotine-based pesticide from Bayer pharmaceuticals that farmers were spraying on their rapeseed, maize, and cereals) were contributing to the shortened lifespans of bees, if not Colony Collapse Disorder itself; the European Food Safety Authority decided in 2013 that these pesticides were an unacceptable risk to bees (who, let's not forget, we rely on to pollinate 75% of every single food source on the planet) and in April of that year, banned those pesticides. Meanwhile in the same year in the United States, the EPA along with the Department of Agriculture (who has absolutely no vested interests in the continued use of pesticides on major cash crops like, oh, say, CORN) formed a task force to really, for reals you guys, look into the issue because it's for serious. Our Congress continues to debate the bill introduced in 2013 (Saving America's Pollinators) asking for these same pesticides to be suspended until their effect on pollinators can be fully studied.  Ultimately, though, scientists haven't agreed on what definitively causes Colony Collapse Disorder or what is causing the huge drop in bee mortality to the point that the words "Bee Extinction" are being bandied around. 

Wait. What?

Damn. "Extinction" is a really big word.

Scientists are also asking whether monoculture and nutrition have an effect on bee health. The California almond orchards alone ship in 1.6 million honey bee colonies every year to pollinate their crops; hives that are fed corn syrup or sugar during the winter to sustain them and then survive on a single crop type of pollen for the spring. Except the University of Jerusalem says that colonies that are kept on farms for crop pollination suffer from nutritional deficiencies because of the low diversity of flowers; and those deficiencies lead to lower life expectancy for bees. The study found that bees will attempt to not only find more varied types of pollen to make up for their nutritional deficiencies, but they also work as a colony to fill in nutritional gaps for the colony as a whole. Wellesley College also found that bees with poor nutrition in the larval stages have poor pollination abilities (foraging and waggle dancing) as adults.  As more and more farms combine into mega-acreages of a single crop, bees face journeys of more and more miles to gain access to different flowers; while drought conditions in California especially have robbed the bees of the water sources they need to make such long journeys.

Honey bees are big business. The government estimates that honey bee pollination alone is responsible for over $15 billion in fruits, nuts, and vegetables. A presidential Pollinator Health Task Force has been given the mission to study the decline of the bee populations and determine definitively the cause, as well as come up with solutions for its reversal. We're at such a crisis with our pollinators that the Federal Budget for 2016 includes $82 million in funding just for studies into pollinator health, including Colony Collapse Disorder. The Federal Action Plan, meanwhile, calls for "all hands on deck"--meaning that while the federal government works to increase habitat for bees on federal lands and continues to look for causes, the rest of us have to do our part to ensure that the little bug that's so intrinsic to the survival of our way of life doesn't vanish. Honeybees, like so many of our food crops we've brought from other countries, aren't native to the Americas; so without them we not only lose entirely kiwis, brazilnuts, watermelon, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, macadamia nuts and passion fruit, but we drastically decrease productivity of fruit and nut trees like pears, cherries, apples, avocado and cashews. Not only that, honeybees help pollinate key foraging crops used to feed beef cattle--alfalfa (hay) and clover; and oil-producing crops like rapeseed (the source of canola/vegetable oil), coconut, and safflower. (You can click HERE for a full list of crops pollinated by bees.) They also help pollinate potatoes. Which means a world without honeybees means making fries without potatoes. Or canola oil.

What are you even talking about. 

There's a few ways we can all do our part to save the french fries and the fruit salads, no matter where you live.

--Plant a pollinator garden. Sunflowers especially are awesome sources of bee pollen and their bright yellow color is easy for bees to spot from a long way off. They're easy to grow and don't take up much space, and will give you a good crop of sunflower seeds at the end of the season as a bonus. Lots of seed companies now market special sunflower seeds with extra pollen just for bees; make sure you aren't getting a pollen-free variety (used for floral arrangements). For resources to plant your own pollinator garden click HERE.
--Leave out a little bee bath on hot days. A dish of water with a stone in the center that bees can land on and walk down to sip the water gives far-traveling urban bees a chance to rehydrate and continue foraging.
--Limit your use of pesticides. Soap and water solution (1 tbl castille or other natural soap to 1 gallon of water) is cheaper, more effective against all kinds of creepy crawlies, and won't harm the bees flying in to pollinate roses. You can also use companion planting in your flower beds; rue is effective against Japanese beetles, marigolds and garlic work well against aphids from the roots of the plant up.
--Call a bee removal expert if you find a hive too close to your living areas rather than trying to dispose of the hive yourself. You can call a pest service and have them come out for a fee, but a quick search of Craig's List in my area popped up about 100 entries for free bee removal services--basically, home beekeepers and beekeeping societies looking for hives. They remove the danger to you at no cost and gain free bees for their backyard hives; win-win.

I have to admit, I have changed my tune about bees. When I was just out of college I went over to a friend's house and while we were enjoying our delicious fresh-from-the-garden mojitos in their freaking gorgeous, flower-filled backyard I noticed a wooden structure in the corner. "What's that?"

"Oh, that's our beehive."

I have never thrown down a drink with more fluster and indignant betrayal than at the moment I realized my supposedly well-meaning friends had actually lured me into their potentially lethal killer-bee killing zone. I was horrified and flabbergasted and though I pulled myself together enough to laugh it off while I hustled my little heels right out of the out and into the in, I could not believe the stupidity of my highly educated friends for not only thinking I'd be okay with eating next to a vicious hive of aggressive stinging insects but for purposely keeping one right by their back door. I liked them a lot, but not enough to ever EVER go back to their house after that.

Face palm.

Yeah. I'm the stupid one now. I have of late been plagued by the obsessive desire to have my own beehive and with it, free raw honey, whipped honey, honey on the comb, beeswax candles, beeswax lip balm, and all the pollination I can get so my Big Mac pumpkins actually turn into something beyond huge water sucking yellow flowers that never fruit. Sadly, when I sneakily tried to slip the idea of bees in the backyard into conversation to my chicken-coop-tolerating next door neighbor, she reacted exactly like I did at the mojito-hive party.

A bee stung me and I'm pretty sure it was probably your bee. 

Okay fine. No bees.

My contribution to the local bees this year is a packet of borage seeds I planted out in my beds.

My companion planting books ("Carrots Love Tomatoes" and "Companion Planting") kept recommending borage as a pollinator plant; once I looked into it a little more I found out beekeepers today actually plant borage specifically to attract bees. It's known as a honey plant, giving about 30 kg of honey per acre; it repels tomato hornworms, and it's not demanding on the soil. You can eat it--it's high in gamma-linolenic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid called GLA that's an anti-inflammatory), decorate ice cubes with the pretty, edible, blue-purple star flowers, and it's supposed to also support endocrine health and the ancient Romans used it as an anti-depressant. I put out a handful of seeds in the corners of my strawberry and tomato beds and they sprouted quickly and consistently with no work at all beyond the initial planting. They haven't bloomed yet but the fuzzy leaves are about the size of my palm and fingertips after only about a month. I have crappy luck with starting from seed so I planted a lot, expecting most wouldn't come up, but they sprouted so easily and are growing so vigorously I'll have to transplant before they reach their full 24-36" height and shade my food plants too much. For apartment dwellers, these seeds would certainly bloom in a pot on the patio.

I think about bees a lot these days. When I hear them high up in the trees it doesn't make me nervous, it absurdly reassures me, knowing they're working furiously to assure their survival and ours. When I see them in my roses, busying themselves industriously around the creamy white petals like little liveried servants smoothing a lady's satin skirts, I leave them to it and save my pruning for later in the day, when they've retired to the honey combs. They dance around my lavender. They get drunk on scented geraniums, indulging themselves luxuriously in pinks and pale violet and fuchsia. They are the bards of my garden, humming the same song they sang for da Vinci and Catherine de Medici, connecting my backyard to the gardens of Monet and Van Gogh. They fill the quiet with the fervent sound of their wings, tiny cupids romancing squash blossoms to each other, engendering life within the cherry petals.

Thinking about bees and how much they used to freak me out, the 90's horror movie "The Candyman" popped into my head--a ghost with a ribcage wreathed in bees who appeared if you said his name five times into the mirror. He'd open his mouth and bees would pour out.

Hmm.

Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman...