Saturday is National Honey Bee Day, and Bluestem's editor and her beau have been kept busy by our little pollinator friends, canning apples and pickling the heirloom cucumbers that require buzz pollination to bear fruit.
Honey bees from the Whetstone Valley Honey hives north of Summit and Highway 12 are joined by native wild pollinators in our vegetable and flower gardens, and they're a sight to behold. Our cuke and watermelon patches have vined together, while number of volunteer muskmelon plants and a couple of acorn squashes (from over-ripe fruit we composed in the newly-turned beds last fall) have joined in the verdant riot.
Because of the honey bees and their wild kindred, those vines are bearing fruit. A lot of fruit. It's an advantage of living amid agricultural land that's mostly still used for grazing by our near neighbors on the Coteau.
Why honor the bees with a day of their own? Honey Love Urban Beekeepers explains in a post for National Honey Day:
The National Honey Bee Day program started with a simple concept. Bring together beekeepers, bee associations, as well as other interested groups to connect with the communities to advance beekeeping. By working together and harnessing the efforts that so many already accomplish, and using a united effort one day a year, the rewards and message is magnified many times over. We encourage bee associations, individuals, and other groups to get involved. The program is free and open to all.
The primary goals of your National Honey Bee Day Programs should include:
1) Promotion and advancement of beekeeping.
2) Educate the public about honey bees and beekeeping.
3) Make the public aware of environmental concerns as they affect honey bees.
Environmental Working Group (EWG) Senior Scientist Tasha Stoiber notes in For National Honey Bee Day, Show Some Love for Pollinators:
Bees play a critical role in our lives. Bees and other animals that spread pollen, or pollinators, are essential for producing more than one-third of U.S. food products, worth nearly $20 billion each year. They are also necessary for diverse ecosystems and support over 85 percent of the world’s flowering plants.
August 18 is National Honey Bee Day, according to an official proclamation by the Department of Agriculture. It’s a good day to focus on the importance of bees and what we can do to protect them.
For more than a decade, bee keepers have observed losses of significant numbers of hives. The troubling decline of bees is thought to have multiple causes, including parasites, climate change, shrinking food sources and pesticide use.
The most widely used pesticides in the world are neonicotinoids, or neonics. They are used to coat corn and soybean seeds before planting and sprayed on other fruits and vegetables during the growing season where bees and other pollinators can be exposed.
Last year, in the largest field study of the effects of neonics on honeybees and wild bees, scientists from the United Kingdom, Hungary and Germany reported that neonics harm bee colonies, especially when bees have nothing to feed on other than crops treated with synthetic pesticides. These pesticides have also been found in samples of honey from around the world.
To protect pollinators, the European Union recently banned the outdoor use of three neonics, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is dragging its feet, delaying until next year a review of neonics and the risk they pose to bees and other pollinators. The EPA has not restricted any previously approved uses of neonics, but has temporarily halted the approval of new outdoor uses until the risk assessments are complete.
The Home Depot has committed to stop selling neonic-treated plants by the end of this year and Lowe’s will phase out their use by 2019. According to Greenhouse Grower’s 2016 survey, most growers who supply home stores are moving away from neonics.
What can you do to protect honey bees and pollinators?
- Plant a garden! You can support food sources for bees by planting native flowers in your back yard. Even a window box can provide a food source for bees. You will also support other types of pollinators including butterflies, moths, hummingbirds and beetles. Find tips for creating a bee-friendly garden here and here.
- Do not use pesticides around your home or in your yard.
- Participate in citizen science programs. The Xerces Society and other organizations track North American bumble bees through the Bumble Bee Watch project. The Great Sunflower Project invites people from all across the US to collect data on pollinators that visit plants in their gardens, parks or schools. See more citizen science projects here.
While the Denver Post proclaims Friday as Honey Bee Day, contributing writer Betty Cahill provides a Punch List: What you should know about National Honey Bee Day that includes valuable information about honey bees and native pollinators.
Closer to home, Minnesota pollinator champion Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-S.St. Paul, used the occasion to issue a press release Rep. Rick Hansen proposes “Lawns to Legumes” cost share on National Honey Bee Day :
This Saturday, citizens from across Minnesota and the nation mark National Honey Bee Day. National Honey Bee Day was created to honor the insect responsible for the pollination of more than 1/3 of the food we eat. The day is celebrated by beekeepers, beekeeping clubs and associations, and honey bee enthusiasts from all across the country.
Recognizing that Minnesota has led the nation in laws protecting pollinators, pollinator research, and is near the top in honey production, Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South Saint Paul) is proposing the “Lawns to Legumes” cost share program.
“Minnesotans know we live in a special place,” remarked Rep. Hansen. “We cherish our environment and everything that inhabits it. Today I’m proposing a cost share program for homeowners called ‘Lawns to Legumes.’ We have helped farmers and solar energy sites create pollinator habitat, now this would be the first program specifically targeting assistance to homeowners who want to convert lawns to pollinator friendly habitat. Minnesotans expect us to protect our pollinators and this is exactly the type of program that will help bees, monarchs, and our native pollinators.”
Rep. Hansen is expected to introduce the legislation in January 2019 when the next legislative session convenes.
While our legumes don't need pollinators to produce, studies suggest that the pollinators visiting our handsome heirloom bean flowers do help boost yields and our freezers' dwindling space suggests the same. We've also put in borders of native plants like coneflowers--and the bumblebees and their brethren feed there as well.
Perhaps South Dakota can find its way to imitate Minnesota's policy innovations. Certainly, the beekeepers--and gardeners who convert boring lawns into habitat--would gain.
As for Honey Bee Day, we'll be celebrating by doing what we do every day these days: picking cucumbers and putting up pickles.
Photo: A bee in a cuke blossom.
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