Pollinators

Pollinators are any insect, bird, or animal that helps carry pollen from one flower to another. This movement of pollen must happen for plants to become fertilized to produce fruits and seeds. 75% of the world's flowering plants and 35% of the food crops depend on pollinators to reproduce. The most common pollinators are bees, butterflies, moths, birds, and bats.

Problem

On a global, national, and local scale, pollinators are facing threats to their livelihoods as a result of industrial agriculture practices. Specifically looking at honey bees, they are being negatively affected on all 3 scales from exposures to the varroa mite, pesticides and insecticides (neonicotinoids), loss of floral abundance due to increased land use for monocropping and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Local

At the SAP there are 6 man-made bee hives (Langstroth) that are occupied by colonies of honeybees. Each colony has a few thousand bees in it. These hives are used for educational purposes, to generate honey sales, and aid in pollinating plants at the SAP. Currently, the hives face issues over the winter with contracting Varroa mite and the mid-winter hunger from insufficient quantities of food due to lack of foraging availability in the warm seasons. The Varroa mite is treated for, however the hives keep contracting the parasite due to other hobby beekeepers in the area not treating their hives.

Global

The global problem pollinators are facing is the decline in population due to habitat breaking, pesticide usage, climate change, and the parasites and predators. Since 2006, the annual loss of pollinators is about 30% of their colonies every year. This is due to major loss of floral abundance and more increased land use. The problem with seeing declining population number is the affect it has on food and global trade. The pollinators effect is most relevant to food production and without them there is affects in supply and demand. Planting extra flowers that attract pollinators is helpful to more reproduction and also helps us with keep food production up.

National

The Honey bee (Apis mellifera) is not native to North America, they were imported from Europe in the mid 17th century. Honey bees contribute to the pollination of fruits, nuts and vegetables and are worth approxmately $15 billion to US Ag (USDA,2021). The number of honey bee hives in the United States has decreased from 6 million in the 1940s to appx 2.5 million today. As a nation we have declared June 19-25 to be “National Pollinator Week” to bring awareness to the decline.

Background Information

Bee Issues:

The importance of this website is to inform others about the risks honey bees face each year. As majority of our agricultural productivity is dependent on honey bees, it is crucial to notice these risk and respond accordingly. Parasites, viruses, bacterial disease, pesticides, nutrition, and genetics are just a few of things that play a huge roll in the low numbers of honey bees. With the changes in climate patterns, have been affecting when plants are blooming each season. If its too early, beekeepers are using artificial sources to keep the bees happy and healthy. Another aspect that keeps the bees healthy is the diversity in their genetics. As the queen mates with 12 other male bees, the combined genetics improve disease resistance and productivity of the colonies. However, honey bee queens are responsible for producing all 1500 eggs a day which could impact her health. If the queen bee health is poor, this would result in bad quality workers, impacting the colony numbers. The poor reproduction is one of the reasons pollinator numbers are so low. The biggest affect on pollinator life is the pesticides. These pesticides are man made chemicals used to kill pest organisms that could injure the plants or animals; however it is also killing helpful pests.

USDA Honey Bee Health:

This study focuses in on honey bee health and how we can impact what happens next for our world. USDA's research agency is doing what it can to improve bee management. By narrowing down the major factors that threaten honey bee health it can be divided into parasites and pests, poor nutrition, and pesticides. The USDA is doing research to improve bee management by studying diseases and parasites to be able to control them better. The Agricultural Research Service is conducting studies on the interaction of bees and pesticides to understand how much pesticide is to much to kill the bees. By researching more about these topics, we are able to control more to protect the pollinators so they can continue to help us.

Why pollinators are important:

This articles discusses the importance of pollinators; Not just honey bees but also wasps, ants, beetles, flies and butterflies that are also facing a decline. As stated, majority of crops rely on pollinators to move the pollen from one plant to another in order to fertilize the flower to produce seeds and fruit. This leads to a worry of food stability as many pollinators are disappearing. Since 1991, average population of pollinators has decreased by 25%. This is due to climate changes and the habitat loss from humans using the land for farming. As depicted in the picture above, it shows what foods are completely dependent to foods that do not need pollinators. As a world without pollinators is possible, it also means a world without fruits, nuts, avocados, cocoa beans, and coffee beans. To focus in on helping pollinators and keeping them around, we need to find a better balance. This means maximize the fields and adding pollinator preserves. In order to do this, more people need to be educational on agricultural practices to allow wildlife to flourish.

Greenpeace:

This articles breaks down what is hurting the bees, why that matters, and what we can do to fix it. The challenges pollinators are facing are pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, and global warming. As many of these challenges are interrelated, they are still problems that need to be addressed. The main problem is the pesticides and habitat loss. There have been 150 different chemicals residue found in bee pollen throughout the last couple years. This is due to the pesticides found on the plants, but the pesticides companies chose to not do anything to fix this behavior. The first step to saving the pollinators is to ban the most dangerous pesticides, preserve the wild habitat, and work to restore the agriculture of all living things.

Implementation Plan

Timeline

Following these steps should help increase bee population

Budget

The implementation plan would focus on what could be done on the local scale to help support the population of the honeybees that the University has access to at the SAP. The population decline and loss of habitats over the winter can be prevented with some added techniques, collaboration, and forage increase.

Our plan suggests the inclusion of a few late-season blooming flowers that will provide the honeybees with a much needed food supply boost to prepare for the long winter.

As always, Varroa mite checks are preformed in the fall and treatment is applied before the weather becomes too cold. This practice is well maintained by Prof. Anne Marie Fauvel and Farm Manager, Michael Hinkle. By communicating and attending meetings with the local beekeepers in the Holland Area Beekeepers Association, more information could be relayed on Varroa mite infestation experiences to help pinpoint potential sources.

Additionally, hives can be wrapped in insulation to keep them more protected from the harsh cold and better the colonies survival outcome

Triple Bottom Line Analysis

People

Our agriculture in the United States is dependent on honey bees as pollinators and without them our grocery store shelves would not be recognizable. When honey bees suffer from factors like heavy pesticides, varroa mites and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) humans feel the impacts as well.

Planet

The honey bee is one of the best pollinators that humans know of and without them our planet would change substantially. Honey bees are critical to the planet's ecosystem and their constant work is what allows us to eat a balanced diet consisting of fruits and vegetables. Bees help to pollinate 84% of crops humans eat, globally this accounts for $235 billion to $577 billion in annual food production. Without bees and other pollinators supermarkets produce shelves would halve(Andrews, 2019)

Profit

Honey bees provide 5 products that come from the hive honey, beeswax, royal jelly, propolis and venom. Honey bees made approximately 157 million pounds of honey in 2019 at $1.97 per pound valuing at about $339 million(USDA). Products from the hive are being used in all sorts of areas to include but not limited to craftsmaking, hygiene items and pharmaceutical industry. The agricultural benefit of honey bees is estimated to be 10 and 20 times the total value of honey and beeswax (FDA).

References

Andrews, Eleanor. “To Save the Bees or Not to Save the Bees: Honey Bee Health in the Anthropocene - Agriculture and Human Values.” SpringerLink, Springer Netherlands, 20 May 2019, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-019-09946-x.
“Ars Honey Bee Health.” Index : USDA ARS, https://www.ars.usda.gov/oc/br/ccd/index/#:~:text=Major%20factors%20threatening%20honey%20bee,one%20another%2C%20which%20complicates%20issues.
“Bee Issues.” Pollinator.org, https://www.pollinator.org/learning-center/bee-issues.
Bloom, E. H., Graham, K. K., Haan, N. L., Heck, A. R., Gut, L. J., Landis, D. A., Milbrath, M. O., Quinlan, G. M., Wilson, J. K., Zhang, Y., Szendrei, Z., & Isaacs, R. (2021). Responding to the US national pollinator plan: a case study in Michigan. FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2430
Egerer, M. (2022). Bee discovery suggests the importance of urban gardens in a changing world. RENEWABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SYSTEMS, PII S1742170522000199. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170522000199
Ritchie, Hannah. “How Much of the World's Food Production Is Dependent on Pollinators?” Our World in Data, 2 Aug. 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/pollinator-dependence.
Schwartz, Jason, et al. “Save the Bees.” Greenpeace USA, 18 June 2014, https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/.