Bee or not to bee

“Oh, the buzzin' of the bees in the cigarette trees
The soda water fountain
Where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings
In that Big Rock Candy Mountain

Many people will recognise the open lines from the song Big Rock Candy Mountain however the buzzin of the bees is a sound we are almost certainly hearing less often. (And just out of interest, no bees are hearing the buzzing because they are deaf – their communication is all visual and chemical.)

Jenny Cullinan, of UJU Bees is passionate about bees but not any bees, but rather wild bees more than bees in boxes, which she compares to most of the world’s chicken.  She regards these as “battery bees” – living in most unnatural circumstances in man-made hives. Wild bees, she says, live in nests, not hives. And where do the wild bees live – often in holes in dead trees or in protected rocky crevices. And in case we are getting the idea that all wild bees live communally, bees broadly live either social, semi- solitary or solitary lives.

First let’s focus on social bees – where we get our honey.

In a bee nest, Jenny shared at a recent symposium, wild bees only produce enough honey for their needs. By introducing them to man-made hives, where the queen is cut off from the entire hive, the bees go into super production, literally storing the honey in cells in the ‘Super” – the top half of the hive.

Jenny says that in the wild nests, disease and predators, such as the viroa mite and wax moth are not a problem. Her amazing studies show that, in fact, nests harbour tiny pseudo scorpions which eat the larvae of the wax moth. These pseudo scorpion are so small that they seem to be treated as pets by the colony, yes pets, not pests. The bees actually will bring wax moth larvae to these scorpions as food. (One can only see this happening under great magnification.)

Jenny shared so many interesting facts and video, in her recent presentation. She explained that the social bees have no immune system so that it is vital that they keep the nest extremely clean and disease free. One technique is that certain bees do not have the job of collecting pollen but propolis which then covers the walls and entrance. Propolis has disinfection properties so each bee as it leaves and enters the nest gets a coating of this essential oil. (These guys are smart, you have to agree. They have certainly developed some great techniques in their 18 million years of evolution.) Nature’s genius. Incidentally, this propolis has fire retardant properties, - it melts rather than burns. All Nature’s genius.

If they are so clever, what are the downsides for these bees, wild or in hives. There are Banded Bee Pirate Wasps, related to bees that predate bees. The wasps are most active at the hottest part of the day. At times of high wasp activity, all bees must remain by the hive, or rather say nest, to protect the swarm. Only as the day cools can the bees leave the nest to forage. And even then, they are not safe. They are favourite prey of birds such as Drongos, and flycatchers and even Sugarbirds who enjoy them as the bee’s rummage in flowers such as a Protea repens. Lizards also enjoy them plus they also have to avoid Yellow Jacket Wasps and robber flies.

And that’s not all. Bee numbers are being decimated by the use of pesticides, so their numbers are dwindling throughout the world, particularly our wild bees. Jenny noted that wild bees in Europe are in serious trouble. In Germany wild bees swarms are illegal and by law must be destroyed as they are believed to harbour disease and bee pest.

Bees are the pollinators of so many fynbos species. If they die out, so do so many fynbos species plus we need bees to pollinate so many of our food crops, particularly our fruit. Imagine, for example, no tomatoes, apples or pears on our supermarket shelves. There are areas of China where they have used so much pesticide, they now have to pollinate their fruit trees by hand with a paintbrush where they could have all this done by bees and get honey as a spinoff.

To bee or not to bee – Part 2

If you are like me, if you said bees, you would immediately think of hives with swarms of bees producing wonderful sweet honey but also that a bee can give you a nasty sting.

BUT not all bees are honeybees. This I learnt attending a lecture given by Jenny Cullinan, who studies all wild bees, social, semi-social and solitary.

Solitary bees by design are the main fynbos pollinators however the introduction of a great many honeybees hives is proving a problem to them and their numbers are declining.  The high density of honeybees means that despite them not being as efficient pollinators as solitary bees, their high numbers mean they outcompete the solitary and semi-social bees.  Another factor leading to their decline is that bees need a temperature of 25 degrees to fly. Social/honeybees reach this temperature earlier in the day as the nest warms earlier because of combined body temperature. Semi-solitary and solitary bees need the day to warm up before they can fly. This too means many flowers have already been pollinated by honey bees before they can be reached by their more solitary cousins.

Back 130 million years ago all plants were wind pollinated – no bees - however there were insect- eating wasps. The evolution to bees came about as flowers were producing pollen which the wasps realised was also protein. This discovery led to the evolution of bees, a specialised species of wasp totally dependent on flowers. This also led to flowers becoming more attractive as they discovered that there was an alternative to wind pollination. The more noticeable the flower, the more likely it would attract bees. Interestingly, bees however do not see red so the role of pollination of red flowers is filled by butterflies.

The bees also evolved a fascinating way to harvest pollen bearing in mind that they do not have baskets or hands. As they fly, they generate static electricity, so the pollen attaches itself to the bee.

Some bees are species specific so if a plant species goes extinct, so does that species of bee.

Carpenter bees, a species of solitary bee, is a buzz pollinator. Here the bee lands on a flower – an example is the flower of a Keurboom – grasps the flower and buzzes on the note of C. On ‘hearing’ this, the flower releases its pollen. A buzz pollinated flower will not release pollen to a honeybee.

Solitary and semi-solitary bees look after their young. Carpenter bees for example, excavate tunnels in wood in which they lay their eggs and raise their young. One bee species female nests in the ground whereas the male will sleep overnight in loose sand such as a mole rat run. In the case of semi-social bees, the adults raise their babies with the help of her earlier brood. They don’t make actual honey but, as pollen goes off quickly, they preserve the pollen with sugar.

This is just a taste of what there is to learn about bees and the ecological role they play in pollination. If you ever get the chance to attend a Jenny Cullinan talk, grab it. Her passion for bees and their conservation is infectious. She is writing a book on her research but until then, there is lots on the internet so go read more about these fascinating creatures. 

A solitary bee. The head of an allodapine bee protruding from the entrance to its nest in the tip of a dead pincushion bush.

“The chelifer found in South Africa is mostly Ellingsenius fulleri and is believed to be a predator of small mites, wax moth larvae and other arthropods found in the nest debris. They often cling onto the legs of bees and are believed to be spread in this way to other colonies” (Geoff Tribe). ujubee.com