Save the bees!

 

 

"Save the bees!" — these calls to action usually come with a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live." 

Problem is, there's no evidence Einstein ever said that. And that statement also simply isn't true. If all the bees died tomorrow, we would still be able to grow food — just maybe not the sort you'd like.

Why's that?

It comes down to how different plants are pollinated. Wind-pollinated crops such as wheat, rice, and corn would continue to thrive, whereas you'd have to say goodbye to flowering crops, which includes most fruits and vegetables.

 That's because animals, so not just bees, but also hoverflies, bats, birds, beetles and more, are involved in the pollination of 90% of the world’s flowering plants.

And here comes the honeybee, right?   

When we talk about bees, we often only think of the honeybee - but there are some 20,000 other bee species around!

 

Well... honeybees do, of course, pollinate flowers. But they're not the stars of the show.

 

"The general public confounds bees with the honeybee," said Isabelle Dajoz, a pollination ecology researcher and professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris. "It would be the same situation if, for example, you were talking about birds and people think that when you talk about birds, you talk about chicken, or you when you talk about mammals, people would think only of sheep."  

 

There are around 20,000 different species of bees. Yes, you read that right. Most are wild, solitary, and highly specified to certain plants, which make them much better at pollinating. Bumblebees, for example, perform buzz pollination — while holding onto the flower they, you guessed it, buzz loudly to release the pollen, something honeybees can't do. And it's not just bumblebees that are so good at their jobs.    

 

Even though we can't accurately measure the value of this wild bee pollination, crops around the world would suffer without it. Yields in the United States are already lower due to wild bee decline, and a recent study found that globally, we may have already lost a quarter of wild bee species. This also has major implications for life at higher trophic levels. 

 

 "Lots of animals depend on diverse plant communities for their food, for their nesting habitat. For example, lots of birds, lots of little mammals will eat the fruits or seeds of plants," said Dajoz. There's no telling how devastating wild bee loss is to both our food security and the stability of ecosystems.  

 

 Are honeybees in trouble? 

Honeybee colonies are definitely suffering losses due to climate change and intensive agriculture, but the idea that they are dying off is only partially correct, according to German Beekeepers Association DIB. Because they are managed by humans and receive veterinary care, they are comparatively safe.

 

What can I do if I want to help? 

 we need to stop obsessing over honeybees and turn our attention to wild ones.

 You can help provide bees with shelter and provide a safe haven for them in your backyard

 Wild bees and honeybees both love diverse habitats of native plants, so planting them in a backyard or even a balcony helps to support all bees. The larger the variety of plants, the more different types of wild bees will be able to find food. 

 Helping them find nesting ground is another option. They like to make homes in dead logs, as well as in open, sunny ground. A manicured lawn is the worst place for all bees. And opt for organic produce instead to support regenerative agriculture.

 

Source

DW Environment

https://www.dw.com/en/dying-bees-whats-the-big-deal/a-57572721

 

 

RANGE

There are over 20,000 bee species worldwide, including the honey bee, which originated in Eurasia and has been imported around the globe as a domesticated species. Wild bees species live on every continent except Antarctica. In North America there are approximately 4,000 native bee species occupying ecosystems from forests to deserts to grasslands.

 

DIET

Bees feed exclusively on sugary nectar and protein-rich pollen from flowering plants, unlike the carnivorous wasps from which they evolved.

 

BEHAVIOR

As they forage, bees perform the critical act of pollination. As a bee enters a flower to feed on nectar and gather pollen, some of the pollen sticks to the bee’s body. When the bee flies on, it deposits some of that pollen on the next flower it visits, resulting in fertilization, allowing the plant to reproduce and to generate the fruits and seeds so many other wildlife species rely on as a food source. In fact, bees pollinate a staggering 80 percent of all flowering plants, including approximately 75 percent of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in the United States.

Though all female bees can sting, they only do so when threatened. Honey bees, with hives filled with honey and larvae that need protecting, are generally more aggressive and likely to sting when disturbed than solitary native bees.

 

LIFE HISTORY

Bees begin life as eggs, which hatch into larvae the feed and pupate and eventually emerge in their adult form, where they visit flowers to feed on and gather nectar and pollen.

Unlike the hive-forming domesticated honey bee or wild bumble bee species, most bees are solitary nesters. They don’t form hives, create honey, or live a communal lifestyle. Instead, they lay their eggs in a series of tiny chambers in tunnels in the ground, in hollow plant stems, or in decaying wood. Unlike hive-forming bee species, which collectively care for their young, female solitary bees provision their eggs with a ball of nectar and pollen and leave them to grow and pupate on their own with no parental care.

However, some species do not build nests at all. These “cuckoo bees" will lay their eggs in nests built by other species. Cuckoo bees will sometimes kill the host species’ larvae to ensure their own eggs will have enough food to grow to adulthood.

Queen bumble bees can live for a year and workers for a month. Solitary bees also live for about a year, with the majority of that time spent developing in their nesting chamber where they hatch, pupate, and often overwinter. Their adult lives, during which they are active, lasts approximately three to eight weeks. Females tend to live a bit longer, as they need to build a nest and lay eggs.

 

CONSERVATION

Both domesticated honeybees and many native bee species are in decline. In fact, some species, such as the once-common rusty patched bumblebee, are now listed as endangered in the U.S. Potential causes of these declines include habitat destruction, disease, agricultural and lawn and garden practices, use of pesticides, habitat fragmentation, changes in land use, invasive species, and climate change.

Pollinators, notably native bees, are critical to the survival of North America’s native plants, other wildlife, and people alike. The National Wildlife Federation (USA) maintains and supports several initiatives that support pollinators.

 

SOURCES

The National Wildlife Federation

https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Invertebrates/Bees

https://thebeeconservancy.org/why-bees/

do your part to #Savethebees

Here are some actions you can take to help preserve bees and other pollinators:

 

·         - Plant nectar-bearing flowers such as marigolds or sunflowers for decorative purposes on balconies, terraces, and gardens

·          - Buy honey and other hive products from your nearest local beekeeper

·        -  Raise awareness among children and adolescents on the importance of bees and express your support for beekeepers

·         - Set up a pollinator farm on your balcony, terrace, or garden

·         - Preserve old meadows, which feature a more diverse array of flowers, and sow nectar-bearing plants

·         - Cut grass on meadows only after the nectar-bearing plants have finished blooming

·         - Use pesticides that do not harm bees, and spray them in windless weather, either early in the morning or late at night, when bees withdraw from blossoms

 

SOURCE

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/why-bees-are-essential-people-and-planet

 

Thank you also to:

https://www.gov.si/en/registries/projects/world-bee-day/

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The Dirty ‘Renewable’ Energy Increasingly Heating Swiss Homes

 

The Dirty ‘Renewable’ Energy Increasingly Heating Swiss Homes

A protection forest near Toffen that was logged in 2019

 LUCIE WUETHRICH

Lucie Wuethrich’s activist journey started when her neighbor came to her crying. They lived below a protection forest near Bern, the Swiss capital, yet logging created a risk of rocks crashing onto their property. Her neighbor’s driveway had already been pelted with a massive boulder.

In response, Wuethrich started investigating why trees were being cut down in a protected area. She learned that this type of logging was allowed for forest maintenance, but “what shocked me enormously was to discover that 95% of this would be burnt.”

What Wuethrich had stumbled on was a corner of the biomass energy industry, in which wood is burnt as an energy source. Many politicians love it because they typically get to mark this in their environmental balance sheets as a source of renewable energy, under the premise that the trees that are logged will get replaced with freshly planted trees. So biomass helps governments meet their carbon reduction goals, even though burning wood remains a major source of carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution.

Many foresters appreciate the industry because they get a market for their so-called low-value wood, which typically can’t be used for more profitable purposes like construction. Some maintain that forests need to be periodically thinned anyway to maintain good forest health and low fire risk, so these thinnings might as well be used to heat people’s homes.

Defenders of biomass energy also contend that the industry isn’t leading to deforestation. “For years, the forest area in Switzerland has been increasing annually despite timber harvesting,” comments Nöel Graber, a spokesperson for Axpo, the country’s largest producer of renewable energy.

 Who doesn’t praise the biomass industry? Many environmentalists. They point out that the biomass industry is so massive that it doesn’t solely use thinnings and waste wood; that trees need to remain in the ground to continue absorbing carbon; and that overall, burning wood is an inefficient and highly polluting source of energy generation that doesn’t deserve to be called renewable.

 The Bremgartenwald forest, where increasing logging has been documented recently

And in response to the biomass industry’s point that Swiss forests are actually expanding, Wuethrich, who works with environmental organizations including Biofuelwatch and the Biomass Working Group of the Environmental Paper Network, counters that the picture varies widely by region. She’s seeing shrinking forest cover locally.

As well, the quality of forest matters. Under Swiss government definitions, Wuethrich points out, “Radically thinned/logged forests still count as forest, as indeed do forestry roads and forestry installations.”

Unlike the UK, which imports most of its wood pellets from the US, Switzerland generally logs its own forests as a source of domestic heating. Its main source of renewable energy is hydropower, and the country may have limited space for solar and wind energy. It’s long been customary in Switzerland to burn wood for heat, with little awareness of the impacts on deforestation, air quality, and human health.

Within this mix, wood burning is set to expand. Demand for tiny, uniform wood pellets, and the associated prices, are climbing. According to Wuethrich, government and industry parties are looking to increase woody biomass production by 40% or even more.

In Bern “energy wood has been called the ‘Oil of Emmental’,” says Wuethrich, referring to a central region of Switzerland. She believes that a desire for energy self-sufficiency and a diversity of energy sources, coupled with the government’s 2050 target of net-zero emissions, is driving the push for biomass energy.

“The government is very pro-biomass while the general public knows very little about it,” Wuethrich believes. “It is an uphill battle here.”

 Stacks of wood destined for combustion, near Studen

 LUCIE WUETHRICH

Surprisingly, some major environmental groups in Switzerland are actually encouraging people to burn more wood. One of these is myclimate, a nonprofit that provides subsidies for heat pumps (an energy-efficient form of heating) – but also for wood pellet heating systems.

According to Kai Landwehr, the head of marketing for myclimate, “we want to change the way houses get heated as soon as possible. Hence, we need to shut down and replace fossil heating systems. It is simply not possible to install a heat pump at every location. Reasons for this are, for example, noise protection regulations or because the necessary drilling is not possible. In these cases, pellet heating offers an alternative.”

myclimate promotes only automated pellet heating systems, which it argues produce less particulate matter than older models. Yet even newer models of wood-burning stoves, designated as environmentally friendly, still produce very high levels of tiny particle pollution.

So instead of incentivizing people to burn wood, Wuethrich says, “The infinite renewables such as solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energies should be promoted and further subsidized instead.”

She’s frustrated by the gap between the perceptions and the realities of forestry use. “People think of Switzerland as a green and pleasant land, but we leave disproportionally large carbon footprints thanks to our lavish lifestyles,” Wuethrich believes. To counter the image of lush and pristine forests, she has been monitoring and documenting what she calls “radical logging” of carbon-storing trees that are then sent on to wood chippers.

What Wuethrich needs is for more environmentalists and policymakers to take notice of the unsustainability of biomass energy. “That is why I am still fighting for this. I never really expected this in Switzerland.”

Check out my website.

https://www.christinero.com/

Christine Ro

Source: Forbes 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2022/03/16/the-dirty-renewable-energy-increasingly-heating-swiss-homes/?sh=515650df27a6

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