Killing " Nature " !

Queensland has just had an abnormal rain event which reversed a drought with a flood.  It has been catastrophic for the cattle, sheep and dairying industries with television pictures bringing lurid images of dead animals rotting in the sun as the waters reside.  Breeding is a slow process and it may take decades before the numbers are restored to the level that preceded this flood.

The rest of Australia is suffering the usual summer plague of bushfires and this is adding to the decline in the bee population.  Across the world, the bee population has decreased by about sixty percent because the use of pesticide is reducing the number of plants that they need to survive. Without bees we have a problem with crop pollination and the bee industry moves its hives in crop rotation in accord with farm interests for their mutual benefit.

Crop pollination relies on more than bees.  Another natural pollinator are the fruit bats found across Australia and this hot weather had decimated their numbers.  As well as commercial food crops, this pollination is necessary to keep the reproduction process alive in the vast timber industry.  In fact, bee hives are deliberately sited in the deep bush to gain the flavours to their honey from particular timber types and these brands bring a premium in the shops.

In the past, bees were a common sight in the suburbs of Australian cities, but that was a time when most homes were on a quarter acre block and we prided ourselves on our gardens.  Today that block has shrunk and homes occupy most of the land or high rise and the time of the " vertical village " has eliminated most gardens.  Encountering a bee in the city is becoming rare.

Smoke from bushfires is fatal for bees.  It is smoke the honey industry uses to calm bees when this product is removed from hives and in a sudden bushfire the smoke disorients bees and prevents their return to their hive - and they settle on the land and die.  The industry rushes to remove hives when a bushfire threatens, but then fires are sporadic and quickly bring smoke to huge areas.

When a ever growing world population is facing a coming food crisis this reduction in bee numbers is a critical danger.  Without the bees we will have lower crop numbers to sustain markets and in many cases - no crop at all.  There simply is no other natural pollinator that can be relied upon to nurture a wide range of crop types other than bees.

Now we have a new menace about to impinge on bee numbers.  The east coast of Australia was recently faced with a massive dust storm as winds picked up soil from the inland and brought it to the coast.  This seems to be a growing phenomenon and as it is as unpredictable as smoke, it is something that hive managers are unable to manage.

Plans are underway to create strategically placed " floral pit stops " for bees throughout our cities.   The average bee needs to stop and rest every 500 metres and the more of these to provide resuscitation the better.   We also need to curb our enthusiasm for pesticide.   Weeds have flowers and those industrious little bees do not distinguish between the type of flowers they service.   If we  starve bees of their source of income we automatically reduce our own food supply.

In the long term, the humble bee holds the key to human survival.