A Bee is Not so Bad. (by Michael Smith)

When I was 6 years old my dad handed me a dusty strawberry jam jar and said “go catch some bees”. This seemed like a suicide mission to a young child who was only 50 times bigger than these terrifying creatures; insects who possess a remarkable ability to empty kid’s pools quicker than the suggestion of an early mark leaves a teacher in mid-sentence.  

My fears were soon allayed, however, when my dad showed me how easy it was to nab a bee. The trick is to sneak up on them when they are riveted, rustling through the banksias, their proboscis roving wildly in search of nectar then close them in the jar, flowers and all.  

I learned pretty quickly that your average jam jar could hold a maximum of four bees before they banded together to engineer a great escape, the speed and aggression of which left the thwarted captor with heart throbbing in their throat and broken glass on the ground. 

Far from being irresponsible, my dad wanted me to get up close to these industrious marvels to see how hard they worked and how important their co-operative mindset was to their survival, pollination of other plants and our supply of honey.  

Many studies have been initiated by the puzzling behaviour of bees. Bee flight was thought to be an anomaly in 1934 and until 2005, it was often used as an example of where science had failed in its attempt to explain. 

In fact, bee flight bucks most trends in insect flight which is what made the mechanism so elusive- bees beat their wings much (some call it ridiculously) faster than similar-sized insects but in smaller arcs. A bee’s ability to fly is almost as puzzling as its ability to live in a hive. All that heat (35oC inside a hive on a normal day), noise and relatives climbing over one another would be enough to ruin any family get-together in the human realm. But for bees, the warmth generated and applied to growing larvae by their sisters is essential to their growth. To stop it getting too hot, some worker bees are detailed to stand at the entrance of the hive and fan. As for the noise, bees are indifferent to the ceaseless beating of wings day in day out. The reason: bees are almost completely deaf. 

Clearly, bees live in a markedly different society to our own. This was encapsulated by the term ‘eusocial’, coined in the 1960s to reflect the order imposed by reproductive demarcations determining workload and a system of extended family which work together to care for the young. It is hard to imagine a human society functioning for very long in which males are perfectly adapted for mating and little else and infertile female workers do just that, work for their entire lifespan. Perhaps some feel our society is more ‘eusocial’ than we think!

The bee is made up of many varieties: honey bees, bumble bees, leafcutter bees and over 1000 species of stingless bees. Bees, wherever they are, pollinate countless and diverse plant species across the globe. As stated by Colin Fleay a commercial bee keeper: “One in three mouthfuls of food you eat is produced directly or indirectly by bees” whether it be honey or fruit or even animals that benefit from pollination. Such is the scale of agriculture in the US, for example, that native reserves of bees can not meet a given area’s pollination needs. To meet this demand, a system of bee rentals between beekeepers has existed since pioneered in 1908 to ensure that fruit and nut trees continue to be fertilized. Any demise in bee populations or bottleneck in shunting bees around the country could easily cost nations millions, if not billions of dollars.  

Unfortunately, there is something affecting bee populations in Europe and North America which is alarming commercial apiarists. This concern is doubtless echoed in Dreamworks Animation’s most recent Bee Movie which presents a world without pollination. “Colony collapse disorder” or CCD is a growing problem in which worker bees rapidly and inexplicably disappear from their hives. In October 2006, there was at least one case of CCD in 24 States in the USA. Many causes have been suggested such as parasites, climate change, electromagnetic radiation (from mobile phones) or the spread of GM crops. Although a casual relationship has not yet been established, the level of alarm in the agricultural community is unmistakable and research will likely elucidate the way our actions, collective lack of foresight or technologies are having on the insect world. 

While the spoils of bee hives and their derivative foods are still ours to enjoy, we should appreciate honey not only as a food but also as a complementary ‘medicine’. Mostly a mixture or sugars and enzymes, honey is the subject of a growing interest in its antibacterial and healing properties. Whatever the benefits of this ancient food enjoyed by countless generations, the significance of the bee must be upheld and our ability to live alongside them re-evaluated. 

All images are used with the permission of the owner

Michael Smith is a science graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney with a special focus on Nanotechnology. He is about to embark on studies in Medicine at the University of Sydney. Michael also has a great love for music and well-made Australian guitars. He is not allergic to bees.

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