Book of the Month: April 2020
Throughout April, I spent my newfound abundance of free time reading Thor Hanson’s Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees. I chose this book largely because the warming weather and blooming flowers of springtime have always made me think of bees, but I realized I didn’t really know all that much about the fuzzy little pollinators. Hanson’s charming yet scientific exploration of the bee’s role in our world was the perfect introduction for me.
The book provides a respectable amount of scientific background into various topics and issues without overwhelming the nonscientific reader. Hanson also does an excellent job of sprinkling in personal anecdotes or experiments he’s done, which sparked an inspiration in me to try to do some at-home science of my own during Washington’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order.
The book is divided into four parts: exploring bee biology and evolution, the relationships between bees and flowers, the impact bees have on humans, and the future of bees. From these larger parts, I’d like to share with you three of my own major takeaways from the book.
Food Without Bees
Coffee is my creative fuel, and I drink it almost every time I sit down to read or write. Though some coffee plants are self-pollinating, bees can still boost pollination significantly. With the help of bees, coffee plants can produce 20-25 per cent more fruit. On top of that, my favorite coffee mix-in as of late has actually been raw honey. Since my move to Washington I’ve been buying from Artie’s Harvest, a PNW supplier of jams, syrups, popcorn, and honey. Raw honey has various nutritional benefits, plus I just love the taste and prefer it over sugar in my bean juice.
All this to say there is such a wide assortment of foods we consume that rely on bees to one extent or another, some of which we may not even realize. Though I could easily find sweetener alternatives for my coffee, it’s not so simple to find substitutes for the 150 other crops that require or benefit greatly from pollination by bees, including: almonds, carrots, garlic, kale, peaches, sesame, vanilla, and many more.
Hanson includes an amusing, but stark, analogy of this idea in the book. He ventures out to a McDonald’s to order one of the world’s most iconic foods: the Big Mac. Upon receiving his hamburger, he proceeds to remove everything from it that wouldn’t exist without the help of bees. In the end, he’s left with just the (sesame seed-less) buns and the meat patties, having scraped off the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. This simple experiment really illustrates just how dull our eating experience would be in a world without bees.
Farmers and Bee Conservation
My favorite parts of the book were those that took a boots-on-the-ground style approach and involved Hanson interacting with farmers who are making efforts to revitalize and care for bee populations on their land. Two of the most memorable places he visited were the Wagoner alfalfa farm in the Touchet Valley of Washington and Baugher Ranch in central California.
When growing alfalfa in the Touchet Valley, “the bees take priority” because of their importance in the pollination process. Mark Wagoner keeps 1,200 acres of alfalfa and cares for 18 to 25 million nesting female alkali bees. Though some of the bees visit local wildflowers and shrublands, a vast majority of them have shifted to focus on alfalfa. But Wagoner and other local growers have also made adjustments to better suit the bees. They do this by staying up late to spray their fields at night, constantly improving the design of their bee beds, lobbying state and federal agencies, and working together to fund university research on bee-friendly pesticides. Wagoner’s efforts have even won him an award from the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign.
In central California, Bradley Bougher is making efforts to bring more native plants to his land in the hopes of increasing local bee populations. Bougher grows almonds and relies on renting bees from as far away as Florida and Maine to help with his harvest. But with bee availability becoming a struggle due to Colony Collapse Disorder (link?), he has taken matters into his own hands. According to Hanson, “studies have linked the presence of wild species to an increase in fruit set, and shown that planting natural vegetation can quickly triple the diversity of pollinators in an orchard.” These additional flowers help the honeybees out by improving nutrition and reducing the stress of constant movement. Bee habitat also has “stacked environmental benefits,” meaning the good it does reaches far beyond the almonds. Bougher feels that this work is the right thing to do and wants his ranch to set an example for other growers.
Bees’ Influence on Human Evolution
One of the most interesting topics of the book was in Chapter Six, which discussed how bees likely had an impact on human evolution. Hanson consults nutritional anthropologist Alyssa Crittenden about this fascinating idea throughout the chapter.
Every time there is a change in ancestral skulls, questions about diet come up. Honey is the most energy-rich food in nature, which may have caused ancient humans to seek it out to feed their growing brains. Crittenden points out that “bee nests also contain larvae and pollen, which provide additional calories as well as protein and important micronutrients.” When all these factors are combined, they make a pretty solid case that learning to follow bees could have influenced human evolution.
This idea that our connection with bees stretches back so far in time is oddly endearing to me.