The next time you swat at a bee irritably, spare a thought for your next meal. South Africa’s honeybees help pollinate 50 crops, worth over R10 billion each year and their taste for sweet nectar helps sustain 100 000 jobs.
But there are signs of trouble. “We’re working our bees too hard,” explains Carol Poole, of the SA National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi). “We’re transporting our managed honeybees long distances to pollinate crops and it’s causing them stress.”
Poole is the project co-ordinator of pollination and other ecosystem services projects at Sanbi, which is now conducting the local arm of the Global Pollination Project, a programme of the Global Environmental Facility, in response to the global “pollination crisis”.
There has been a mysterious decline of hundreds of thousands of managed honeybee colonies in Europe and North America and declines in populations of other wild pollinators. The project, implemented through the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, hopes to understand the extent to which world agriculture is threatened by pollinator decline – termed colony collapse disorder – and the effects on food security and biodiversity conservation.
The blame is placed on pesticides, environmental pollution, genetically modified crops, pests like the verroa mite, present in South Africa, unexplained bee epidemics, the loss of suitable forage for honeybees, and the overworking of managed honeybees needed to service commercial agriculture, according to Sanbi.
These factors, says Sanbi, mostly in combination with one another, “are most likely causing declines in southern Africa as well, although this has not been recorded in any detail”.
“So far, South Africa’s honeybees have not shown significant losses, probably because of the relatively unmanaged state of African honeybees, but the recent advent of new bee diseases suggests our bees are now more vulnerable and stressed than before.
“There is stress from the fact that beekeepers are moving bees a lot and for long distances for the pollination services we need for our crops. North of Pretoria, beekeepers are transporting their bees hundreds of kilometres to get to sunflower crops (for honey).”
Sanbi researchers are carrying out scientific research on pollinators and pollination in apples near Ceres, onion seed production near Oudtshoorn and sunflower production near Bela Bela in the Limpopo. Most of the farmers rely on managed honeybees to ensure adequate pollination.
Early research findings in the sunflower region show that both sunflower yield and the abundance of pollinators decreased with distance from natural habitat.
Poole says researchers also hope to understand why bees are attracted to some flowers at certain times. “In some years, onion seed flowers are really attractive to honeybees and in others not. Nobody really knows why.”
The Global Pollination Project is also running in Brazil, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal and Pakistan until 2013.
A world without pollinators – the insects, birds, bats and other animals that provide a free service while they forage for food – would mean a world of far fewer food choices, more expensive food and a vastly changed agricultural sector, according to Sanbi.
“Whether we have enough colonies in South Africa to provide all pollination we need for crops is debatable,” adds Poole. “But as we strive to produce more food at particular times of year under very intensive agriculture, probably one of the main issues is keeping bee colonies healthy all year around.”
Protection of pollinators needs to happen at a landscape level. “There’s absolutely no point in an apple farmer adopting good pesticide management when the farm next door is not using pesticide correctly or not paying attention to various management practices.”
Though the project’s focus is on managed honeybees, conservation and protection programmes will ultimately benefit wild honeybee populations too.
Sanbi and the Agricultural Research Council have also embarked on a pioneering honeybee forage project, funded by Working for Water, which aims to better understand their forage resources as this is “poorly understood”. Little is known, too, of what they feed on out of crop seasons.
And some forage species vitally important to beekeepers, like eucalyptus or gum tree species, are declared alien invasives in the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act (Cara).
“As gum trees are thought to be responsible for 60 percent of honey production in South Africa, the Cara regulations cause serious concern for beekeepers,” says Sanbi.
Sanbi plans to investigate “possible alternatives to conflict species such as eucalyptus” and present recommendations on the management of honeybee forage.
Sanbi is conducting public awareness campaigns about the importance and plight of honeybees.
“Many people don’t know that a third of our food is dependant on insect pollinators. In Europe, there are campaigns now about how to plant bee-friendly plants in gardens. Maybe we will get there get one day.” - Weekend Argus