Natives

“If all the pollinators went extinct, we probably wouldn’t starve,” Kremen says.

With Neal Williams, at the time a graduate student in her then Princeton University laboratory, and Robbin Thorp, a renowned bee taxonomist, Kremen studied watermelon pollination in California’s Central Valley.

A biologist, though, will want to know: Is it a nonnative, domesticated honeybee?

The honeybee crisis underscores the tremendous risk we have unwittingly built into our farm system by relying on a single insect to pollinate so much of our food supply.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) had not yet been diagnosed or named, but already American beekeepers were reporting record deaths within their honeybee hives.

Field biologists have a strange affinity for spending countless hours in the hot sun scrutinizing tiny things.

“It’s a component of creating a resilient system,” she says.

And despite 400 years of domestication, there are still many things about honeybee biology we cannot control—for instance, the insects’ susceptibility to parasites, viruses and climatic conditions.

And despite 400 years of domestication, there are still many things about honeybee biology we cannot control—for instance, the insects’ susceptibility to parasites, viruses and climatic conditions.

During that period, CCD has joined the already long list of maladies afflicting honeybee hives, and the economic fortunes of beekeepers have grown increasingly perilous.

Return of the Natives: Reviving native bee species could save honeybees—and our agricultural system—from collapse By Hillary Rosner 1.

The resulting paper, published in 2002 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, concluded that by restoring native bee habitat in their fields, farmers could “hedge their bets in the event of honey bee scarcity through partial replacement of honey bee by native bee services.”

But then, you probably will not be the one to revamp the nation’s food supply and rescue our agricultural system from looming collapse.

Field biologists have a strange affinity for spending countless hours in the hot sun scrutinizing tiny things.

During that period, CCD has joined the already long list of maladies afflicting honeybee hives, and the economic fortunes of beekeepers have grown increasingly perilous.

As author Hannah Nordhaus put it in her book The Beekeeper’s Lament, “Farmers expect bees to function like yet another farm machine—like shakers, sweepers, tillers and combines.”

“If all the pollinators went extinct, we probably wouldn’t starve,” Kremen says.

Return of the Natives: Reviving native bee species could save honeybees—and our agricultural system—from collapse By Hillary Rosner 1.