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Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneers
I've got bees on the brain lately. It's hard not to, with all the buzz about. Bee Movie is playing at the theaters. My favorite TV show, Pushing Daisies, has Chuck doing her Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneer thing. Then there's the news of 3,000 year-old beehives discovered in northern Israel. Turns out the Promised Land was flowing with honey and that beekeeping was a highly organized industry. But the most significant story concerning bees is, of course, the much-reported disappearing bee population known as Colony Collapse Disorder.
Regardless of whether Colony Collapse Disorder is the result of climate change, pesticides or cell phones it's clear that bees are essential to life as we know it and have always been a vital human ally. The humble honey bee is responsible for every third bite we consume in our diet. These pollinators affect 35% of the world’s crop production, increasing the output of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide. Without hardworking bees to help spread the pollen, a third of our crops wouldn't get fertilized.
The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) launched a new initiative earlier this year to save the falling bee population. It believes that city dwellers could start raising hives on rooftops, behind garden walls and on private lots. Tim Lovett from the BBKA believes that the plan could be beneficial for people, as well as bees, "Many new urban beekeepers see working with a colony of honeybees as a healthy change to the stress of office life. Tending bees is peaceful, keeps you in touch with nature - and bees only sting when provoked." There's also The Pollinator Partnership whose goal is to empower folks to help save the bees.
The ancient beehives discovered in Israel are considered unique because of their location in the middle of what was a thriving city. Perhaps they knew something that we are only now re-discovering. Bees-Online.com reports that:
there is a growing recognition that bees living in cities tend to produce more and better honey than those kept in the countryside. "Bees can fly up to five miles for food, but they tend not to stray more than a mile from the hive," said Davies. "Many people think the honey crops in cities are of a higher quality than those made by bees in the countryside because there's a near-constant flow of tremendously varied nectar to be harvested in cities from all the parks, trees, gardens and window boxes," he added. "If you compare these multiple harvesting opportunities to those offered by the countryside, which tends to be grouped into areas dominated by a single crop which only flowers once a year, it's clear why cities are such good places to keep bees."
City bees also tend to be livelier than their country cousins. 'The higher temperature of the city means that bees stay awake for longer during the day and are more active,' said John Hauxwell, chairman of the North London Beekeeping Association, who has seen his group's membership double in the last five years."
The world could use a a whole lot more Unorthodox Urban Honey Pioneers to join their ranks. Atlanta already has a few. You can read a couple of their blogs at Linda's Bees and Urban Apiary.
Burke Sisco
It appears that the premise to M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, "The Happening," involves Colony Collapse Disorder as one of the first signs of a worldwide epidemic that causes a corresponding human die-off that may be coming from ecological pay-back. A visit to "The Happening" website production notes section features a quote sometimes attributed [I think erroneously] to Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the earth, then man would only have four years of life left."
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