While growing up in rural Wisconsin, I fell in love with bees. More precisely, European Honey Bees or, as we commonly know them, honey bees. We hosted dozens of hives on our small family farm and enjoyed the sweet honey they produced. I was a bit young to do much with the bees, but I would study their behavior and was amazed by their hard work.
Fast forward four decades to the fall of 2018, and my love of bees rekindled. My family asked what I wanted for Christmas. The answer was a honey beehive. Now in June of 2020, I am up to 3 hives and trying to convince a skeptical family we should get a few more.
Image by George Wimmer
Over the space of 3 articles or maybe more, we will learn about the history of the European Honey Bee, its introduction to the Americas, the bees’ continued evolution, and the significant struggles it has faced in the past few decades.
We start to cover this in our Wimmer’s Wilderness Podcast Episode #42, which you can find anywhere podcasts are available and at wimmerswilderness.org. European Honey Bees are kind of like Voltaire’s description of the Holy Roman Empire, neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire.
It appears the European Honey Bee is not European, nor is it descended from Asian bees as first thought. It derived from African Bees.
In the 1600s, European Honey Bees were brought to the Americas to produce honey for colonists. Since then, they have spread and been crossed bread with new strains of bees from Europe primarily in the 1800s and later with African bees in the 1900s. Their genome has been continually evolving and changing over hundreds of years up to this very day.
Those who have followed my writings on social media or listened to Wimmer’s Wilderness Podcast might be wondering why I promote what is at its base an invasive species. It is a fair question considering how I have detailed the destruction caused by invasive species and the devastation caused by invasive species.
Honey bees could spread disease to native bees and do compete for food. They also are critical to pollinate farm crops we all need, and the honey they produce is a ‘less bad’ sweetener than sugar. I still feel good about my bees and what they do, but I think it was good to point out the issues as well.
Image by George Wimmer
In the second article, I detail my two-year journey of beekeeping and all its failures and successes. It has been an educational experience. Be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter from CritterFacts to be sure you don’t miss it!
The third will go into the details of honey bees and honey production since 1969.
The trends are genuinely frightening.
Thank you for sharing your story about the honey bees.
Thank you
Today, I went to the beach with my children. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shellto her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!