Bee friendly advice with Pam Moriearty

 

[August 28, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

The Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society invited bee enthusiast Pam Moriearty to give the August presentation at the monthly meeting.

Moriearty began by giving everyone a quiz on honey bees. “One of the most important ways to protect our bee population, especially honey bees, is to know as much as possible about their lives,” she said. There has been much in the news lately about the decline of the honey bee population, a vital part of agriculture and nature across our country.

Question one asked about the history of honey bees in North America. While everyone seemed to think that honey bees have always been here, Pam had to correct that way of thinking. “Honey bees came to America in the early 1600’s with the migration of Europeans to our shores,” she said. The honey bees found the land rich with flowers and plants that they could use to make honey. The bees thrived. Honey bees followed the westward migration of settlers and reached the Mississippi River by the 1820’s. Most of these were wild, swarming as they went along and starting their own hives.

The prairie of Illinois was an ideal environment for honey bees who feasted on the diverse mix of prairie grasses and forests that made up the landscape at that time. The bounty of Illinois flowers and plants that the honey bees used to gather pollen bloomed for months, from the waning days of winter to deep in fall. “I have seen honey bees buzzing around the flowers in my backyard as early as late February,” said Pam Moriearty.

The early settlers knew the value of honey and tried to tame wild hives. The bee hives were crude affairs consisting usually of a hollowed out tree trunk. It was difficult to remove the honey from these makeshift hives. There were even professional bee hunters in those early days, people who roamed the land in search of wild hives from which they could harvest honey.

“In the 1850’s honey bee culture changed forever in the United States with the introduction of the Langstroth hive, especially engineered to remove honey easily without disturbing the bees,” she said. And the rest is history. Honey has become a billion dollar industry in the United States thanks to technology. The Langstroth is still used today by professional and backyard bee keepers. The bees can make honey in the supers, and bee keepers have access to it while keeping the denizens of the hive happy.

The next questions on the quiz that Pam used to test the bee knowledge of her audience were all revelations. A swarm of bees that sometimes shows up in the backyard is not aggressive. “Just leave them alone. This is a homeless hive looking for a new place to live,” she said. They have sent out scouts to find a new wild hive and will soon be gone.

While honey bees are essential to the almond crop in the US, the largest in the world, they are not essential to pollinating other crops. Honey bees and native bee species that do not produce honey are essential to pollinating 70% of all plants, plants that make up our diverse and essential environment.

There are more bee species in Illinois than all species of mammals, reptiles, and birds. No one in the audience selected the correct answer on that quiz question. There are 400 species of bees in Illinois. Honey bees are the only ones to produce honey.

“Honey bees live in a colony above ground while other species live under ground. Honey bees have a complex social structure, while native species are loners,” she said. A honey bee colony can last for years while native species last only one year before a new generation is born. During the winter, honey bees do not hibernate. They gather in a large mass within the hive and move constantly to keep the entire hive warm enough to survive the cold temperatures. They use stored honey as food during the long winter. It is essential that the hive has sufficient honey for a long cold winter.

The final question on the bee quiz was an easy one. Are honey bees in trouble?

Yes, honey bees are in trouble. And trouble in the bee world spells trouble for the human world. “There are a number of reasons why honey bee populations are declining,” said Pam. Habitat loss and food source loss are primary reasons. New diseases from other parts of the world that migrate to the United States are another. The use of pesticides in row crop agriculture also harms bee populations.

Finally, the changing temperature harms bees. Blooming flowers and bee culture are no longer in sync as they have been. Flowers bloom but bees are still in a winter state. When bees are ready for pollen, flowers that they have depended on have already bloomed.

“Another of the main reasons honey bees are endangered our lack of knowledge about them,” she said.

Pam Moriearty is a bee enthusiast, and she is definitely spreading the word about how we all can make the environment safer for these essential friends of the earth. “We can make our yards more bee friendly with just a few adjustments like planting a mosaic of flowers that bloom during spring, summer and fall,” she said. She practices what she advocates with a back yard that is a riot of continuously blooming plants. She even has a few milkweed plants for the monarchs. “The more bio-diversity we have, the healthier the planet,” she said.

The Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society meets the third Monday of the month at their research office on Chicago Street. The public is invited and there is always an interesting presentation.

[Curtis Fox]