Why we need to pay attention to bees

Most of us know bees are important but what else do we know about them? To find out more I spoke with Stephen Buchmann, a pollination ecologist specialising in bees.

Stephen, the author of What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees, is also an adjunct professor with the departments of Entomology and of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. And he says, when it comes to bees, “humanity definitely needs to pay attention”.

“There’s a quote that was attributed to Einstein about, if all the bees are gone, all the humans die off,” he said. “Einstein never really said that but about a third of the world’s food, fibre and beverage crops are either helped or created from that intimate pollination, that mutualistic dance between flowers and bees that has been going on for about 130 million years. As dinosaurs were lumbering along there were bees visiting flowers during that time. So, for the about 1400 agricultural crops grown around the world, at least 80% require pollination by, not just honey bees but native bees, flies, wasps, beetles, butterflies and then some vertebrates too – honey birds and nectarbats. So, we do need to pay attention.”

We should also worry less about them, he says.

“Even for the so-called ‘killer bees’ the African honey bees… if one of those bees is on a flower, she’s just collecting nectar or pollen and you can literally flick her off the flower with your finger and she’s not going to come back and zap you between the eyes,” Stephen explains. “The dangerous thing is to go near one of their colonies where you can experience the guard bees and then they can be reacting to the CO2 on your breath, dark colours, fast movement – so that’s why beekeepers like to look like the Pillsbury dough boy so you need to be in white overalls and move slowly and carefully. If the bees interpret you as a bear or a skunk which is going to come in and steal their honey, they’re going to act appropriately which is to defend their food and their home.”

Don’t forget we need them to defend our shared home. So getting to know them a bit better is surely the least we can do. In regaling us with stories from the book about the “incredible, amazing life histories of bees” Stephen helps us with that in vivid and illuminating ways that really let you put a new face to the name.