Protecting the Pollinators
On one of our first few days in the beautiful country of South Africa, we had the opportunity to go to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town. While there we took a very informative tour talking about the history, the types of plants, and other conservation issues. Throughout the tour, I would stop and take macro photos of all the beautiful flora that resides in the fynbos. Pictured above is white honeysuckle with a bee. Seeing all the flora while in South Africa made me wonder what type of shape south Africa's beekeeping industry was in and if they were doing anything to conserve honeybees. According to an article written by Vincent Dietemann, about the need for conservation of honey bees in Africa, he started beekeeping businesses in Africa are mainly small scale supplementary cash income schemes often promoted by rural developmental projects. With more than 310 million colonies across the continent of Africa, only about 14- 18 million of those are managed hives. According to the Agribusiness report in 2004, at a national level, 50 out of 3000 South African beekeepers are estimated to produce 80% of the honey. In South Africa, to remedy the Capensis Problem, a dividing line has been drawn to separate the area in which A. m. scutellata and A. m. capensis can be used for beekeeping activities (government notices R 159 (1993) and R 1674 (1999) under the Agricultural Pest Act 1983) (Dietemann et al. 2008). This also says that no bees can be transported across the line. If honeybees colonies are infested line, with the parasite north of the line, that colony must be destroyed within 72 hours to prevent the disease from spreading to other colonies are bees. In South Africa, they have also put restrictions on the import of beekeeping equipment into South Africa, which is regulated by the government. In another study by Guenat et al. , they discussed the effects of urbanization and management practices on pollinators in tropical Africa. In this study, they concluded that urban pollinator conservation is possible but would require an increase in green spaces by urban planners to ensure the growth of the population of pollinators while the tropical African city grows. To maintain the health, population, and diversity of bees in South Africa, there should be a larger focus on using native bees from the certain area to create colonies instead of importing bees from Europe of Australia. This could help increase the gene pool creating more diversity and resilience to disease. Also when using bees from the local area, you decrease the chance of your bees becoming infected. Dietemann et al. also state that Africa is the only area in the world where a natural population of western honeybees exists on a large scale. Conservation would not only be necessary for the maintenance of unique populations, but also for whole ecosystems as well owing to the role honeybees play as major pollinators of natural flora (Dietemann et al.). We must strive to protect the highly valuable genetic resource that is the western honey.
Works Cited
Dietemann, V., Pirk, C. W. W., & Crewe, R. (2009). Is there a need for conservation of honeybees in Africa?. Apidologie, 40(3), 285–295.
Guenat, S., Kunin, W. E., Dougill, A. J., & Dallimer, M. (2019). Effects of urbanisation and management practices on pollinators in tropical Africa. Journal of applied ecology, 56(1), 214–224.
