...life is funny? Not for the bees anymore! It is not completely clear why so many of them die each year, but among the main reasons are definitely the pesticides used in today's agriculture and the Varroa mite, an insect that is a deadly hazard for the bees. Another cause could be monocultural farming, where farmers only plant one crop on a large area. It drastically reduces the variety of food available to the bees. Bees are essential for a healthy ecosystem though, because they pollinate plants and help them to reproduce. Without bees, plants wouldn't survive and we would have nothing to eat!
A few weeks ago I saw a documentary about bees and what happens now that so many of them die. If you are interested, you can follow this link and watch it yourselves. I had heard about the bee discussion before - an Austrian politician had brought it up, but he was often made fun of. I didn't know how grave the problem was until I saw the documentary.
The most shocking scene was one where they show an apple tree plantation in China. The Chinese farmers had used so many pesticides that all the animals in the area basically became extinct, which means that there are no more bees that can pollinate the apple trees. A plantation doesn't work if the plants don't reproduce themselves, so the owners now hire humans to pollinate the apple trees! They collect pollen from healthy apple trees on a plantation far away, bring it to the chemical-infested plantation and climb every tree in order to put the pollen on the apple trees. It may be a funny sight, but in reality it is one of the most tragic things I have ever seen.
A few days later, I read a newspaper article about a 23-year-old Austrian girl who had a great business idea. The name of their company, 'Rent a bee', says it all. On their homepage, you can rent a beehive for two months. You don't need to know anything about bees or beekeeping, all you have to do is open the beehive door in the morning and close it at night, and you have to provide water for the bees. After two months, you return the beehive and you receive all the honey your bees produced in the last two months, which can be as much as five kilos! If you became interested in beekeeping, they also offer a tutorial and all the equipment needed for harvesting the honey yourself.
Unfortunately, the beehives are all delivered in April. If I could get you excited about having your own beehive, you'll have to wait until next year to get one, sorry. In the meantime, why not get an insect hotel like the one in the picture that provides shelter for different kinds of insects?
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