LAnd Cultivation: Positive or NEgative?
When people think of land cultivation and agriculture, they might not see where the harm lies. Fields full of flowering plants as far as the eye can see and transportation to said lush fields. A bee haven, right? Not quite. Bees tend to be extremely susceptible to stressors in their environments and both cultivated fields and long road trips have the power to stress bees out.
Let's Start with land
- Honey bees used in commercial pollination become exposed to large expanses of land cultivated for a specific type of crop. These large fields of cultivated crops often provide only a small portion of the nutrients required for bees to have a healthy diet. Different types of flowers maintain different levels of different nutrients.
- Studies have shown that the majority of pollen in the hives of honey bees is often not from the plant they are pollinating for commercial reasons. Bees only fly about three miles from the hive, meaning they are finding small patches of uncultivated land within their radius in order to access a nutritional diet. They visit these patches again and again rather than only visiting the cultivated fields.
- The small patches of uncultivated land are often where native bees are also getting a diet variety. This puts honey bees and native bees in competition and in close contact to transmit diseases.
- Native bees are often in trouble because honey bees must use their habitats for their own diet.
- Bees need a large diet with lots of different lipids, proteins, and nutrients to survive and thrive. Without a good diet, bees become sick easier and the function of a whole hive can weaken if the bees aren't eating enough variety.
- Another problem facing bees is actually home gardens and flowerbeds. Most people don't check and see if their flowers are native plants. If flowers aren't native to the area, native bees may not be attracted to them and may not be getting the right nutrients from them.
- Native bees also suffer from habitat loss. The more cultivated fields there are, the less natural meadows, grasslands, and swamps there are to provide native bees with the diet they desire and need.
Imagine eating only
one food day after day for weeks on end. How would you feel? |
Bees: World Travelers
Colonies of honey bees are now found almost everywhere in the world. From America to Asia honey bees are used as both pollinators and honey producers. Commercial bee keepers truck bees across countries and even around the globe on transportation such as trucks and boats. This consistent traveling on highways in trucks can seriously stress bees out and when bees get stressed, they can easily become sick with a number of viruses and infections. They also spread pathogens from place to place more easily and produce competition which the native bees must try and work around.