What do we know about bees?

For thousands of years, honey was the only sweetening material known, and this little busy creature who produced this sweet food should have been regarded with reverence and awe .

The biodiversity crisis has brought a new emphasis on faunistic surveys as it highlights the urgent necessity of expanding our knowledge on the extant fauna. We need to know, for instance, how many species there are, where they are and what are their requirements for survival. Beyond this, faunistic surveys produce data needed for mapping the geographical distribution of species and other taxa, which are essential for biogeographic studies. Many bee faunistic studies have been published, but few researchers have devoted time to the collection of bees on a periodical, standardized basis in any given area. In one of the first attempts to summarize our knowledge of the distributional patterns of the bees, biologist called attention to the scarcity of data on bee faunas of several regions and to the difficulty of comparing the available data. Most of these data consisted of lists of species built upon specimens collected without any specified set of field procedures. Here we are proposing that more emphasis should be given to systematic collection in limited areas and that minimum standards for such surveys should be established so that results obtained by different researchers can be meaningfully compared. By systematic surveys we mean intensive periodic collections in a limited area through at least one whole year, and employing a given set of standard field procedures. Nonsystematic surveys will be called “casual collecting.” We will ·be emphasizing procedures that allow for comparison of species richness and relative abundance of bees in the different sites. These procedures, we believe, will also ensure better information on the geographic distribution of bee taxa and will support the advancement of other biogeographic fields, vicariance and phylogenetic biogeography, for example.

The comparison between conclusions drawn from casually collected material and those derived from systematic surveys demonstrate some of the advantages of the latter over the former. For example, Michener (1979:287) had the impression (based mostly on casual collecting) that the bee fauna in South American savannas (“cerrados”) and fields becomes richer as one goes from north (in central Brazil) to south (southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina). Comparing the species richness of limited areas in southern Brazil with those of limited areas in central Brazil, by means of rarefaction curves (Silveira and Campos, in press) produced evidence to the contrary: local bee populations in southern Brazilian fields are larger than in the savannas of central Brazil. The species richness, however, is larger in the savannas than in the southern fields. It is obvious from the rarefaction curves that a collecting trip of, say 4 hours would on average yield many more species in southern than in central Brazil. A systematic survey covering all seasons, however, would generate more species – (although fewer specimens) in the savanna.

The chances of collecting rare species (as well as undescribed ones) are also greater in a systematic survey than in casual collecting. Another important aspect of systematic surveys is their potential for bringing to light other biological questions worth studying in separate projects. The Melissodes sexcincta was completely dependent on Triumjfota sp. as its pollen source. Although this bee is common and widespread in Brazil, this has never been reported before. This finding lead to a study ofthe relationship between M.sexcincta and Triumffeta (by Collevatti, a very interesting biologist, focused so so much on bees). Similarly, Godinez (another outstanding scientist) discovered that Xenoglossafolva, thought to be dependent on pollen of Cucurbita pepo, is active well beyond this plant’s flowering season and collects pollen on flowers of Ipomoea sp. when C. pepo is not blooming. This interesting finding is also under study.

Bee colonies in conflict zones

In 2021, it has been reported that a swarm of bees has killed 63 endangered African penguins on a beach outside Cape Town. The birds were found dead on Friday on the beach at Boulders, a popular tourist destination south of Cape Town.They were part of a colony of African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) living in a nature reserve, which are considered endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. The area is a national park and the Cape honey bees are part of the ecosystem. “After tests, we found bee stings around the penguins’ eyes,” David Roberts, a clinical veterinarian and part of the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, said on Sunday.

“This is a very rare occurrence. We do not expect it to happen often, it’s a fluke. There were also dead bees on the scene.”

Hey! There is a colony of bees!

‘If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.’

So: ‘Are bees declining?’ Yes

But also: ‘Does it effect all bees?’ Yes.

And: ‘Does it occur everywhere?’ Yes.

This led to the next question: What are the drivers of decline?

For each theory on why the bees are disappearing, there is an outlandish suggestion, Unfortunately, the most likely driver of decline is an unlikely driver of news headlines around the world. The cause of the decline of pollinating insects is multifactorial. A variety of stressors are affecting bees:

 Monoculture

 Exposure to agricultural chemicals

 Long-distance migration

So basically:

 Boring diet

 Exposure to pollution

 Too much travel

Combine the bee’s stressed and weakened immune system with varroa, the small hive beetle and a pathogenic cocktail of other bacteria, viruses and parasites – and you can see why there might be a problem.