Amusing illustrations reflect a very important lesson of how introducing a non-native organism into an environment can have unintended results. Non-native European honeybees, though used worldwide for the survival of our agricultural practices, are doomed in a non-native environment without constant and fervent intervention from us. The native Asian honeybees have evolved a defense against the raids from Japanese Giant Hornets, whereas the European variety tends to be an easy target for these giant native wasps. Why do we use the European variety? Because they have been long bred for our purposes. They produce the large quantities of honey and are easily controlled for their pollination services. Native varieties of honeybees have not been utilized and bred as long, and are only used in smaller non-industrial practices. Many other varieties of native pollinators from bees and wasps to flies and others have been neglected, save for a few such as Mason and Orchard Bees. As good as these European varieties are, there are downsides. Used outside of their ancestral habitats, they are vulnerable to all sorts of hazards since they have not evolved or adapted to these threats. So we have to spend plenty of money and effort to compensate for these weaknesses. Compounding these problems is the increasingly desperate climate and pollution problems we face. Not only are we stressing our tamed European honeybees to all ends, we are also making it harder and harder for our native varieties of pollinators to exist and do their job. We may have made it exclusively the honeybees job to pollinate our crops, but the habitats outside of those crops are now facing the crisis as our native pollinators are suffering as well. In a perfect world, we would be able to form a deep partnership with our native pollinators and rely on them first for helping us feed ourselves, then perhaps non-native varieties that add to our lives and yet do not detract from the natural world around us. But this world is far from perfect. And as much as I would love to see our crops being pollinated by diverse swarms of pollinators, it just isnt going to happen in this century. And it wont happen in the next unless we start to help ourselves by helping those who are here to support us within the natural world. These creatures are not here for our use, but we depend on them nonetheless to survive. Not just survive, but thrive.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 15:57:44 +0000
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