Harris Township Pollinator Project
What are pollinators? A pollinator is any animal or insect that carries pollen from one plant to another, and pollinators collects pollen by coming into contact with a flower.
This naturally makes bees, birds and butterflies the best kinds of pollinators as they get their food from the flowers of plants.
Other organisms such as flies, wasps, and even spiders can act as pollinators whenever they come into contact with flowers, however, they are nowhere near as efficient as bees.
Why are Pollinators Important?
There are a few species of plants that can be pollinated by the wind blowing, for example most grasses are like this, and there are a few species of plants that can self pollinate, for example most rice crop. However, many fruits and vegetables reproduce much more slowly without pollinators, such as strawberries, or won’t reproduce at all, such as raspberries!
Similar to animals, these plants also need to mate in order to reproduce. Being immobile organisms, these plants solely rely on pollinators to help facilitate reproduction. This makes pollinators such as bees, birds and butterflies essential to a healthy, sustainable environment as well as a functional agriculture industry.
Quick Facts
- 87 out of the 115 most prominent crops globally are dependent on insect pollination.
- Pollinators directly contribute to 35% of the global food supply.
- Pollinators contribute more than $24 billion to the United States economy.
- The honeybees are disappearing, dropping from 6 million managed colonies (beehives) in the United States in 1967 to just 2.5 million in 2014.
- Of the over 1,300 different types of plants that are grown worldwide for food, beverages, condiments, spices, medicine and even fabric, over 75% are pollinated by animals.
- More than one in three bites of food results directly from the work of pollinators.
Why are Honey Bees Disappearing?
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
This is a startling phenomenon where the majority of worker bees leave behind a queen, a few nurse bees and a sufficient amount of food. The workers bees seem to disappear into thin air, causing the colony they left to collapse.
While scientists have not been able to pinpoint a specific factor causing CCD, there is evidence to suggest that it may be caused by parasitic mites, a newly introduced family of pesticides (neonicotinoids), habitat loss, and changing beekeeping practices.
Parasitic Mites
A large problem that has plagued honeybees is the Varroa mite (Varroa destructor), an invasive parasite originally found on the Asian honeybee (Apis cerana). Because of its invasive nature, the European honeybees used in the United States have little to no natural resistance to it. Since their accidental introduction in the 1980s, honey bee colony numbers have been steadily declining.
The existence of these mites is almost asymptomatic and difficult to detect until it is almost too late. This is because while the mites are visible to the naked eye on the current generation of bees, their largest impact is on the newborns. The mites feed on the immature bees, causing the new generation to have a significantly reduced lifespan as well as have a smaller size, crumpled or disjointed wings, and shortened abdomens.
These mites spread rapidly, drifting from infected bees whenever a bee drifts into the wrong hive or whenever the mite infestation has weakened a hive to the point where it can no longer protect itself, opening itself up to being robbed of honey by stronger hives, who then contract the mites themselves.
Neonicotinoids
These are a new type of insecticides that cause less damage to birds and mammals, however their damage to insects is more severe. Multiple studies have linked Neonicotinoids to Colony Collapse Disorder.
Habitat Loss, Degradation, and Fragmentation
Increased land development for agriculture, resource extraction (fracking, for example), and real estate have all led to a decrease in honey bee habitats. Before development, these sites would be used by honey bees for pollen and nectar and even overwintering.
Besides habitat loss, there is also the serious concern of habitat degradation. For example heavy food traffic through an area will limit the habitat of ground nesting bees or road construction cutting through a forest, which essentially rips a habitat into two isolated pieces.
What Can Residents Do to Help?
The most important thing to know is that every small step helps. From raising awareness to keeping your own beehive, there are plenty of actions we can take at the local level to help out the pollinators. Here are a few simple things anyone can do to help out!