Honey Bees
~ by Bob Gustin
Imagine a world without honey bees. Sure, you’ d have to find something else to sweeten your tea. But if you love fresh fruits and vegetables, or the delicate beauty of spring flowers, the world would be a bleaker place indeed.
We could survive without honey bees. In fact, the precolonial Native Americans did just that. But the fact is that more than 30 percent of the food we eat is dependent on pollination by insects, and about 80 percent of that work is done by the honey bee.
A study at Indiana University reported that honey bees are the most efficient of the insect pollinators, working in at least 90 crops in North America and are adding more than $ 15 billion a year to U. S. agricultural products.
“ We would have lots of corn, beans, breads, and cereals that are pollinated by the wind,” said Tony Gaudin.“ But the world would be a much less flavorful place.”
And for Brown County resident and beekeeper Mike Bube, it would be a much less interesting place, too.
“ I go out to the beehive and watch their activities,” Bube said.“ I really feel connected, and the bees just seem to be a part of me.”
Gaudin, who lives in the Morgantown area, is a retired professor and head of the science program at Ivy Tech Community College in Columbus who also taught at California State University in Northridge, California. He’ s a biologist and a beekeeper, and one of the founders of the southern Indiana Ten O’ Clock Beeline Beekeeper Club. He calls it a“ positive addiction.”
Gaudin has been working with bees as a hobby for more than 30 years. Like any hobby, it’ s a challenge and people become immersed in it and it becomes a social activity, like golf, where members can talk to each other and exchange information. And the honey is his reward.
courtesy photo
Honey bees are not native to North America. European colonists brought the first honey bees, where they thrived because they had no natural predators, Gaudin said.
Then, 50 to 70 years ago, an Asian pest called the Varroa mite was introduced and began destroying the bee colonies. While there were once many feral bee colonies, now there are very few, Gaudin said. And the increased use of chemicals has also damaged the bee population.
“ Bees are not domesticated animals,” Gaudin said. They are wild insects, and people provide structures for them and encourage them to make it home. People also protect them from parasites.
In return, bees are essential to producing foods through pollination. For example, almond crops in California, Gaudin said, are 100 percent reliant on commercial beekeepers.
Through artificial selection, humans have developed strains of strawberries, apples, oranges, pears,
24 Our Brown County • May / June 2018