Honeybees and Monoculture
Single Crop Plants cover Large Areas and often Many Bees are needed
Apr 27, 2007
Efficient modern agriculture requires large areas of the same crop plant (monoculture) which allows efficient use of farm equipment and labour. When one of the plants requires a treatment it can be assumed that the whole field is ready – when one disease or weed appears it will be the signal to treat the whole patch. This is a very good way for one species (mankind in this case) to exploit another (our crop).
Honeybees and Pollination
Many of the plants we grow for food need to be pollinated by insects. When the flowers are ready there will be vast numbers, and a huge ‘team’ of pollinators will be required. We farm a particular species of insect to do this for us – the Western Honeybee. As the nectar begins to flow and the pollen matures one farmer (the crop grower) contacts another (the migratory beekeeper) and the trucks roll in bringing the ‘pollination equipment’ (the hives of bees). When the job is done the bees are moved on to their next assignment.
Wild Pollinators
Many other insects are capable of pollinating our crops, but since they are wild they need to be able to find their own food (nectar and/or pollen) all summer long. In ‘wild’ areas there is a profusion of wild flowers which flower at different times and they provide the wild pollinators with a continuous supply of food throughout the season. In an ‘unspoilt’ habitat there will be vast numbers of flower species and many different types of insect pollinators. In order to ‘fit them all into the space’ the number of individuals of any one species will have to be low (this is Biodiversity – large numbers of species living together in the same habitat and forming a complex interwoven web of complex dependencies). This means that there can never be enough ‘wild’ pollinators around to solve our agricultural needs – we have banished them to the edges of our fields and to waste land. There will not be enough of them on hand when they are required.
Weeds, Pests and Diseases
What makes monoculture so successful is the fact that the crop can be managed and exploited very easily. We intend this to work to our advantage, but unfortunately it can also be very convenient for other species – which we call ‘weeds’, ‘pests’ and ‘diseases’. By definition these are simply other species of living things that happen to find our arrangements convenient for them too! A ‘pest’ insect in the wild has a limited supply of its preferred food and an array of predators, parasites and diseases that keep it in check. When we provide it with huge areas of food it can have a field day (pun intended!) – it will rampage through the crop. Our attempts to kill it off with chemicals might do as much harm as good by destroying its natural predators and might also harm our bees.
Colony Collapse Disorder
We ‘farm’ honeybees and by keeping so many of them together (many hives) we make things easy for their natural enemies. ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’, whatever the cause(s) turn out to be, might well be the result of our dependency on monocultures.
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