Buying time for the bees

When bees leave their hives en masse and disappear, when predators like wasps steer clear of the abandoned hives, then something is very wrong. But what? A crisis known as Colony Collapse Disorder has affected beekeepers around the globe, with some reporting losses of more than 90 percent of their colonies. And there are no dead bees to be found. Bees are disappearing all over the planet and no one knows why.

For the past five million years, the bee has been a creature of special sanctity, representing many things such as the human soul, industry, cooperation and the sacred feminine. Our relationship with bees also denotes the most ancient form of agriculture. Pre-historic petroglyphs depict women on honey hunts and Ancient Egyptian farmers floated beehives on rafts down the Nile to pollinate their crops.

And yet today, we live in a state of cognitive disconnect, where reality doesn’t link up with what we think we know. The average consumer has little understanding of where food comes from and no idea that bees are a crucial link in the food chain. Many think food comes shrink-wrapped in plastic from a supermarket and that the bees are merely stinging insects that make honey, when in fact they are responsible for pollinating one third of the food we eat, including most of the fruit, vegetables and nuts.

So why are the bees dying and what can we do to reverse this alarming trend? Are industrial farming practices, chemical pesticides, too few pollen-rich flowers, new diseases or all of the above to blame? Nobody quite knows, but what’s clear is that if we don’t do something about it soon, then the human food chain will be in trouble.

Cities appear to be bucking the trend and providing what may be a final sanctuary for bees. While scientists and beekeepers struggle to solve the problem in the countryside we may be charged with keeping bees alive. That’s why we need to install as many beehives as possible in London. Putting them on the new green roof of Camden Town Hall would be a great start.

The Everyman Belsize Park and Transition Belsize are screening the new film “Vanishing of the Bees” on Sunday 29th November at 3pm followed by discussion with the film makers and local beekeepers.