For the past few years, I have observed one of our native shrubs to see what pollinators are visiting. Calscape has recorded Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) as a host plant to approximately 14 species of Lepidoptera. Yet, I have actually never seen a single pollinator visiting the cascades of snowy white, delicate blossoms. I’ve also heard from a handful of local folks on San Juan Island. They say Ocean Spray is “invasive” and should be brush-hogged. According to them, it’s a “fire hazard.” This view is disturbing to me. I felt it important to find concrete evidence of this native plant’s value in our ecosystem.
Bombus flavidus ssp. flavidus
Well, the other evening, I documented the first pollinator I’ve ever seen visiting these blossoms. There is a gorgeous Ocean Spray out our bathroom window. I noticed movement in the upper portions of the shrub. It wasn’t windy, so something else was causing the movement. I went out later, around 9:00 pm, to investigate the cause of the disturbances. Can you guess what I found? Bumble bees!
Bombus flavidus ssp. flavidus
I also experienced annoyance from another buzzer. A Cattail mosquito, Coquillettidia perturbans (say co-KEE-luh-tih-dee-uh PURR-tuh-binz) promptly discovered my bare arm. It slipped its hypodermic proboscis into my epidermis with effortless precision, a precision superior to any medical professional’s injection. I didn’t feel it at all.
Cattail mosquito (Coquillettidia perturbans)
I would describe the bites from these mosquitoes as a very mild annoyance. I didn’t have any after-reaction at all. It was certainly not anything like the bites from some of the other insects I’ve experienced here, especially not thrips. I’m definitely not a thrips fan! You can read about thrips here in case you’re interested. https://buggingyoufromsanjuanisland.com/2021/06/29/public-health-alert-and-some-free-advice/
Getting back to the other buzz in the Ocean Spray. The buzz I was so happy to discover is the bumble bee (Bombus flavidus ssp. flavidus). I didn’t make the identification to subspecies on my own. That was with the help of a fellow named John Ascher on iNaturalist. If you’re curious about his work, you can learn more here: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/podcast/pollination-podcast/137-john-ascher-problem-measuring-bee-decline
Bombus flavidus ssp. flavidus
Bombus flavidus is a species of Cuckoo Bumble Bee, and one of the most widespread species in the world. These bees don’t have a worker cast like other species of bumble bees. They find nests of other bumble bees to occupy and invade these nests. The host bumble bee workers then rear the offspring of the cuckoo bumble bee along with their own offspring.
I hope my discovery leaves you curious about what pollinators visit Ocean Spray in your yard. My next goal is to make nighttime observations. I want to see what is visiting the flowers while they are still in bloom. I suspect they have nocturnal pollinators. If you find any, I hope you’ll report your findings with me. 🙂
To see more of San Juan Island’s invertebrates, please join and follow me on iNaturalist – https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=cyndibrast&verifiable=any . If you have never used iNaturalist, try it out! I love it because it’s a way to connect with other entomologists. It also helps me organize my findings into appropriate categories for referencing when I want to look something up.
Also, please don’t go crazy with the brush hog. Nature loves messy. Humans cause fires. We can do much on that end to prevent them by changing our behaviors and being more careful. Scraping the earth bare and/or parking out your parcel to be “fire wise” is actually not kind to nature. We need to protect habitat for the wild things, not eradicate it. Even mosquitoes have a role in the food web.
The other morning when I was watering our garden, I spied the most beautiful creature I’ve seen in a long time, a Golden Paper Wasp (Polistes aurifer). In fact, in sixteen years of living on San Juan Island, I have only seen one colony of these wasps (April 14, 2024) at the San Juan County Land Bank’s Mount Grant nature preserve. These wasps are native to North America and once considered a subspecies of Polistes fuscatus. However, P. aurifer has a western geographic distribution ranging from BC-CA to AB-MT-w.TX; ne. Mexico (Bugguide.net).
Polistes wasps build open faced nests suspended by a petiole in varied sites. Some select relatively exposed areas under eaves of structures or in shrub-type vegetation, while others utilize more protected cavities such as abandoned rodent burrows or hollow trees. Most often, the ones we see are the non native European paper wasp species (Polistes dominula), that seem very comfortable establishing their nests under the eaves of our homes.
It is believed the more frequently observed (P. dominula) are displacing native Polistes aurifer, but since it is more difficult for scientists studying insects in natural or wild habitats, most formal observations have taken place utilizing sites associated with man-made dwellings (Liebert, 2004). Liebert published a short communication in Insectes Sociaux (2004) where she describes finding ground nesting colonies of this species at an observation site in California, and concludes that the “displacement” theory may be overstated. However, given the loss of natural areas due to habitat loss/conversion, a decline in populations of the native P. aurifer (I believe) would more accurately be attributed to humans. Humans also unfortunately resort to wasp spray to eradicate nests around their homes without understanding that most nests pose minimal or no risk to human comings and goings.
Polistes wasps (native and non-native) are generally considered to be beneficial insects. They are pest predators, capturing and dismembering caterpillars to feed larvae they are rearing. In Eastern and Southern regions of the U.S., some species of Polistes wasps exert significant pressure on the cotton bollworm and the tobacco hornworm, both pests of considerable economic significance.
If you spy one of these Western natives, you’ll know immediately because they have the most beautiful golden brown or caramel colored eyes!
Thanks for reading. 🙂
Polistes aurifer
Polistes aurifer
Polistes aurifer
References
Bohart, G. E. 1942. Notes on Some Feeding and Hibernation Habits of California Polistes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae). Pan-Pac. Ent. 18(1): 30-31. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/piru_pubs/15/
Buck, M., Marshall, S.A. and Cheung D.K.B. 2008. Identification Atlas of the Vespidae (Hymenoptera, Aculeata) of the northeastern Nearctic region. Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification No. 5: 492 pp. (PDF version). Published on 19 February 2008. With 3 Tables and 1073 Figures.
Here’s a quick rundown of what I spied at my bug light when I checked this morning. I did move the bucket and light to a new location across from our house in our open air barn.
There were nine species of moths (31 individuals), two species of Coleoptera (beetles), and one wasp that I believe is Ophion sp.
Moths:
Egira perlubens = 1
Egira (either E. simplex or E. crucialis) = 3
Egira rubrica = 1
Orthosia transparens = 5
Orthosia hibisci = 8
Orthosia praeses = 8
Feralia comstocki = 2
Eupithecia graefii = 2
Melanolophia imitata = 1
Beetles:
Diplotaxis sp. = 2
Strophosoma melanogrammum = 1
Wasps:
Ophion sp. = 1
Melanolophia imitataStrophosoma melanogrammumFeralia comstockiEupithecia graefiiEgira sp. (Either E. simplex or E. crucialis)Orthosia transparensOphion sp. I believeEgira rubricaOrthosia transparens Orthosia presesOrthosia hibisciFeralia comstockiOrthosia praesesDiplotaxis sp. beetle with Orthosia praesesOrthosia hibisiciEgira perlubensEgira sp. Eupithecia graefii
If I may, I’d like to leave you with something to consider. When you rake your leaves and clean your yard – especially if you are burning, chipping, or bagging and removing all those things that fall onto the ground, you are eliminating habitat for native species. If you can refrain the urge to spring clean around your property, you can help support life.
These may be somewhat drab colored moths and you may not even like them, but they sustain other organisms, including plants, because moths are also nighttime pollinators. Each species has a niche, and a role in the ecosystem (and ultimately the food web).
Please take note of nature around you. It’s actually beautiful and mysterious. Whether you like it or not though, nature is life. Nature matters. Little things like leaving the leaves can make a difference. Care.
I thought I’d write up a short post about all the wonderful flies (and a few others) pollinating our plum trees in this cool spring weather. Why feature the flies? Well, for starters, the plum tree blossoms are white and flies love the color white. Another reason to feature the flies is because they are under-recognized and under appreciated, but very important pollinators. Some fly larvae even serve as pest predators, eating aphids. Others, like the tachinid fly below, use caterpillars that defoliate trees as hosts for their larvae to develop. Flies are also awesome because they do not sting! Some even “dance!” My favorite fly hasn’t shown up yet. It’s a Conopid Fly. More about that one later though…
Tachinid Fly (Epalpus signifier)
This past week in the media, there have been so many posts about the decline in honey bees. While there are some (unwanted) honey bees showing up on days when the temperatures climb above 50 degrees, honey bees aren’t active if it is cooler. Flies, on the other hand, are quite busy at work pollinating and do just fine when it might only be 40 outside. Flies are awesome! They need our support and appreciation.
I’d like to add (and I do know something about this because of my entomology background), that honey bees are just not necessary on San Juan Island. In fact, they might even be a very bad thing. They showed up at our plum tree as the temperature warmed up the other day, and as they arrived in increasing numbers, they kicked off ALL of the native pollinators that I had been observing. 😦
For honey bees to fly out of the hive and forage, they need temperatures above 50 degrees. In my experience keeping bees (as part of my graduate school work), they typically do not survive well on the island unless they are fed supplemental sugar water. Think about the ecological footprint of growing sugar to feed the bees!
Feeding honey bees attracts (and supports) the buildup of yellow jacket populations which are attracted to honey bee hive resources (including eating the honey bee brood developing in the hive), and honey bees also bring pests and pathogens that impact native bees (especially bumble bees). One more thing! If you are growing tomatoes, bumble bees are your pollinators, not honey bees.
I hope you will read and consider this recent study published about how honey bees were negatively impacting native pollinators on Giannutri Island in Italy. They were causing a decline in the populations of wild bees. In fact, the study cited an “alarming 80% decline in wild bee abundance over 4 years” (Pasquali et al. 2025). You can access this study to read it yourself here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(25)00262-3
Enjoy the gallery of the native pollinators that I was fortunate to photograph and be able to share. Be a fly fan! Be a native bee fan! Learn about our unseen, but important night time pollinators (moths), and PLEASE LEAVE THE HONEY PIGS for the mainland industrial farm operations.
KEARNS, C. A. 2001. North American dipteran pollinators: assessing their value and conservation status. Conservation Ecology 5(1): 5. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss1/art5/
That’s right! Herman the Persian found something interesting in the yard when we were outside sunning ourselves a bit this afternoon. He found one of the Bibionid March flies (a female). If you read my post yesterday https://buggingyoufromsanjuanisland.com/2025/04/04/nuptial-gifts/, you might note that Bibionid flies were being hunted by Empis flies who rolled them into little balls as nuptial gifts used to woo the lady Empids to mate.
Female Bibionid fly digging chamber to lay her eggs.
Evidently, a few of these Bibionid flies escaped that destiny and actually mated with their own kind. THIS one, that Herman found, was hard at work digging her own death chamber where she would expire soon after laying her eggs. Incidentally, the adults are very short-lived, and in fact, live only about 5-7 days with the primary objective of mating, and for the adult female to lay her fertilized eggs. In spite of their brief existence, adults are also thought to be important early pollinators of orchard trees. Yes, you heard me right! Flies don’t get nearly as much credit for pollinating as they deserve to receive.
I watched her digging with her fossorial forelegs. It seemed to be an impossible task, but she made slow and steady progress. She was still hard at work before we went back into the house about half an hour later. I marked the spot with a rock so I could go back and check, but I suspect even with the rock nearby as a marker, it will be next to impossible to detect any disturbance in the soil tomorrow. We’re supposed to get rain this evening.
In approximately 30-35 days, the eggs she lays will hatch underground. The larvae will live in the top layer of soil and feed gregariously on leaf and needle litter, decaying organic matter, and sometimes on below-ground parts of plants.
If you’re curious, you can read more about Bibionid flies in the attached links. I did see some additional Empis fly males dancing about today with their Bibionid “balloons” or nuptial gift balls for prospective mates.
Morris, H. No date. The larval and pupal stages of the Bibionidae. Entomological Department, Institute of Plant Pathology, Rothamsted ExperimentalStation, Harpenden. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/212009582.pdf
This is one of my favorite garden residents (Eudioctria sackeni), or the Sacken Longhorn Robber. I remember the first time I saw one of these, I thought, “Wow, it’s an Ombre Fly!” If you didn’t know, “ombre” means the blending of one particular color hue to another, often from light tints to dark. The coloration in this particular fly is distinctly “ombre,” though it varies in individuals within the species.
Eudioctria flies are in the family group, Asilidae or Robber flies. They are voracious predators of small insects that can be pests of gardens and orchards. Here, you see this one enjoying a small dipteran (fly) of some variety, perched on the leaf of one of my mint plants. The mint is a popular scouting platform. On any given day in the summer, I’ll see 4 or 5 of these flies in a six foot strip of mint which has become quite abundant in the yard over the past few years. The mint seems to be quite attractive to pollinators, and it also provides shelter for other bugs and critters. Our little tree frogs love to sit in the mint too.
Salal patch in forested area – San Juan Island, WA
I feel compelled to write up a short blog piece this morning before I move on to other tasks of the day. Last week, I tried to address some disturbing misinformation on social media about a native plant in the Pacific Northwest. The plant is a woody evergreen shrub, Gaultheria shallon or Salal. The misinformation is coming from a few folks insisting that Salal burns easily and should be removed in “fire-wising” around your home.
I have some genuine issues around the extreme measures some folks take in fire-wising, as well as the lack of knowledge around the impact these extreme measures have on ecological relationships. The fire-wise practices of removing all forest understory are incredibly destructive.
Removing the understory impacts your forest trees by exposing the soil to drying out much faster, it also removes habitat (shelter and food) for many many species of birds, lizards, flying squirrels, and others. When you pull out Salal, you are taking away an important winter food resource deer browse upon, the berries that feed birds, and the leaves that support the development of our native Brown Elfin Butterly (Callophrys augustinus).
Callophrys augustinus – May 27, 2023
But don’t just take my word on the importance of this native shrub. If you are still concerned about protecting your property, be resourceful and smart about what actions you take. Figure out how to cache enough water over the winter to irrigate around your property and keep things from drying out. Follow local guidelines during burn bans. Use common sense when things start to dry out more in summer/fall. Care a bit about the creatures (including the trees, shrubs, and plants) that call our island home.
For more assistance, see the various resources below. If you don’t still don’t find what you need, our local county conservation district is one of the best places to go for additional help.
Our native pollinators were slow to emerge this year in the San Juans because of the cool weather. Usually, we can rely on flies, solitary bees and wasps, and even moths, ants, and others to pollinate our fruit trees. I did see some species of flies out this spring, but again, weather conditions were poor.
We have PLENTY of “pollinators” out in our yard right now. So, in trying to explain to people when they ask me about a decline in native pollinators, I have a few points I like to throw out for consideration.
1) honey bees are poor pollinators to keep on the island. It has to be above 50 degrees for them to come out of the hive.
2) native flies and other insects like moths (which fly at night and we don’t typically see) are better at pollinating in cooler temperatures. While they also won’t be out if it’s rainy and super cold, they can fly in temperature ranges lower than 50 degrees F.
3) the critical importance of native pollinators may not be in their “pollination” services – but their role as pest predators and/or role in the food cycle for other organisms, and for creating biodiversity in our ecosystem, which helps keep everything healthier. I think this part is important. If you look at some of the plants we put in our gardens (native perennials), they actually do not require pollination to survive and reproduce, but do offer pollen and nectar to many insects, spiders, and hummingbirds. Looking further at the food web, we need a variety of native insects for more than pollination. Tachinid flies, syrphid flies, solitary wasps, ants, and even spiders can be pollinators, but also help regulate populations of orchard, garden, and forest pests.
My take on all of this is as humans, our focus has largely been on how to grow food over environmental conservation and maintaining balanced, functioning ecosystems. With climate change, many of our food growing operations may fail. Our fruit trees (at least none that I know of) are not native. In spite of the best intentions, conditions may decline to a point where we can’t produce great fruit here. Weather is only one limiting factor. We have poor soils or no soil in many locations, limited water resources, and the pressures of continuing development resulting in loss of natural habitats. I don’t have the answers for you when it comes to fruit production or any way to personally mitigate climate change, so we may have to figure out a substitute for growing apples, plums, and such.
Let’s go back to the importance of native pollinators though. If you think of our island as a living organism with many different functions, it is important to have all the essential pieces to keep the “body” healthy. These native pollinators (and the native plants they visit), and all the other myriad species of invertebrates, fungi, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, soil, water, etc. are all part of the “body,” a body that has to fight off occasional or repeated assaults from being thrown off balance by exposures to external forces. Just like we need a variety of foods and minerals and other things to keep our body healthy, so does an ecosystem. We need all of these pieces (and that includes our native pollinators and all the other diverse species) to keep our island home healthy.
As to the fruit trees and other food crops requiring pollination, for now, some of these issues can be mediated by planting around your orchard and garden with plenty of diverse native species and providing habitat for all of these native species to develop. Some of our practices of cleaning and sanitizing our orchards and gardens, burning yard clippings, and applying fertilizers and pesticides can adversely affect the biodiversity needed to help our food production thrive.
I imagine it can be frustrating to see an orchard fail to produce fruit. My grandparents were tenant farmers and wholly dependent on growing cotton and corn and the bit of garden and livestock they had around the home on the property they did not own. When it was a drought year, and crops failed, things were utterly miserable. Destitute would be a better adjective. I believe we may have an inherent desire to be “part of the land,” and grow our own food, but sometimes, despite our best efforts, conditions aren’t favorable. Crops fail. Historically, we have tried (and failed) to control some of these external forces – like applying pesticides in amounts that probably will poison us forever.
I’ve gone way beyond the “pollinator” topic here, but it is next to impossible for me to see a one-dimensional issue. We have a much larger and more complex picture before us. How do we either re-create or maintain a healthy functioning system, navigate the perils of climate change, and feed ourselves? I like to believe that protecting diversity in our ecosystems is an important facet of this complex, multi-layered crisis we face.
I’m wondering if anyone is following the grasshopper outbreak in Oregon? If you don’t know about this, I’ll fill you in and include some links. Perhaps we need to round up our “mean-ole, hummingbird murdering mantids” (EXTREME SARCASM HERE!) and send them south to help out. Just kidding. If you read through the attached list of sources, you’ll see in one where they’ve now determined the mantids don’t have much of an impact on controlling grasshoppers (Fries, 2021).
If they are so bad (and from historical reports, they can indeed reach proportions on the scale of a Biblical plague), what do we do about them? Why is there such an outbreak?
Grasshopper populations cycle periodically, but it’s thought they are worst when conditions are dry. One theory is that a fungus that controls populations isn’t viable in these conditions and only works when we have damper weather.
Historically, control methods have been pretty toxic – everything from arsenic bait to other drastic measures – all environmentally hazardous. If you review old agricultural journals, records of exploding grasshopper populations conjure up images of something you’d see in a horror movie, only it was real. Historical photos exist of a landscape stripped of vegetation; bare fields and trees. Handles were eaten off wooden farm implements and fenceposts were eaten too. Crops were lost, people starved. There’s a reason it’s called a PLAGUE. 🦗🦗🦗
So, this is happening now in Oregon. Aphis is coordinating aerial spraying of wide swaths (millions of acres ) of land with an insecticide called diflubenzuron. Studies have shown diflubenzuron reduces populations of bees, butterflies, beetles, and many other species of insects. Aquatic invertebrates consumed by endangered fish and trout are also vulnerable (Xerces Society, 2022). Xerces Society has a federal lawsuit against Aphis to fight this grasshopper managment strategy. Application of this insecticide directly threatens endangered species like yellow-billed cuckoos, black-footed ferrets, bull trout, Ute ladies’-tresses orchids, Oregon spotted frogs and Spalding’s catchflies which are present in multiple states in which the insecticide spraying program operates (Xerces, 2022).
What can we do if we don’t spray? Well, I would encourage folks to look at the studies about the benefits of eating grasshoppers. They aren’t much different than shrimp. At a minimum, they could be netted, dried, and manufactured into feed for poultry, fish, and swine. We have to stop the madness. Dumping chemicals is only bringing our apocalypse closer. We won’t survive. The grasshoppers probably will. 🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗
PARKER, J. R., R. C. NEWTON and R. L. SHOTWELL. 1955. Observations on mass flights and other activities of the migratory grasshopper. USDA Tech. Bull. 1109.
Lopez-Santamarina A, Mondragon ADC, Lamas A, Miranda JM, Franco CM, Cepeda A. Animal-Origin Prebiotics Based on Chitin: An Alternative for the Future? A Critical Review. Foods. 2020 Jun 12;9(6):782. doi: 10.3390/foods9060782. PMID: 32545663; PMCID: PMC7353569. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353569/
Shah AA, Totakul P, Matra M, Cherdthong A, Hanboonsong Y, Wanapat M. Nutritional composition of various insects and potential uses as alternative protein sources in animal diets. Anim Biosci. 2022 Feb;35(2):317-331. doi: 10.5713/ab.21.0447. Epub 2022 Jan 4. PMID: 34991214; PMCID: PMC8831828. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8831828/
Nostalgia reigns over the little European (now re-named Western) honey bee (Apis mellifera). We think of honey in terms of “liquid gold” or perhaps reminiscent of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, gobbing it all over himself as he dips his paw into the honey jar. Honey bees are indeed important pollinators, and the economic driver of the honey industry. You can stick the almond industry in along with them because, “without honey bees, we wouldn’t have almonds, right!” More on this if you keep reading.
If you delve into how we use honey bees for pollination, it’s hard not to be sympathetic to the plight of the honey bee. Going back to the almond industry, I can tell you it isn’t pretty. Here, and in other monoculture systems, the honey bee must collect pollen and nectar from one, single, solitary food source. Then that bee and her hive family are loaded onto a truck with many other hives, and delivered to yet another industrial monocrop to do the same thing again. Maybe this time it’s an apple orchard, or soybeans, or sunflowers. In every instance though, the nutrient deficiencies can’t be ignored. Honey bees need a diverse array of nutrients just like every other living organism. They aren’t healthy because of how we are keeping (and exploiting) them (McGivney 2020).
The honey industry brought in $321.22 million U.S. dollars in 2021 (Statistica, 2022). They are packed and stacked in boxes, driven across the country, unloaded in unfamiliar territory, hunger staved off temporarily with a jar of high fructose corn syrup, or sugar water (if they’re lucky), while they familiarize themselves with the new surroundings, and are off to work immediately. They are unpaid transient workers. Valued, and needed, but treated much like the migrant workers we count on to move about the country picking our food crops.
Of course, we are told, the nation won’t eat if we don’t have bees! Partly, this is true. The part that needs clarifying is, Which bees exactly do we need to pollinate our food crops?
I’ll disclose here that I am a former honey bee keeper. Former being the point! I quit. I became enlightened. Not by the unrealized dreams of liquid gold, not from stings received, but rather by the dings of my brain firing at the connections I started to make from my observations and from searching for scientific literature that supported what I was observing.
When I was working on my MS in Entomology and Nematology from the University of Florida, I took a beekeeping course as part of my curriculum. Part of the requirement for the course was to shadow other beekeepers and set up a hive of my own. I enthusiastically set off on these tasks. Keeping my own hives was an incredibly fascinating experience.
Here in our island community, I mentored high school students who set up a hive at the community garden and gave several public talks to various organizations as part of their senior project. I’ve acted as a consultant for other beekeepers, loaned out beekeeping equipment, suits, literature, and several extension agencies have used photos I took of honey bee queens and varroa mites in their educational materials.
Varroa mite on European honey bee (Apis mellifera) – photo by Cynthia Brast-Bormann
Keeping honey bees was fascinating. Yes, I was stung, but it was mesmerizing to watch them working. At one place that I lived, I kept them just outside of my daughter’s bedroom, and to open the window and smell the honey bees was like entering heaven. It was intoxicating.
As to my success in keeping honey bees on San Juan Island, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag. My longest-lived colony survived three years. Mostly, later in the season, the bees would be attacked by wasps, and the hives completely raided. Honey bees died in winter from a lack of food and reduced numbers. Bees ball up together inside the hive in winter. If the population is small, they just can’t generate enough heat to stay warm.
For a few years, I bought new packages of bees. That was also a mixed bag. Some years, the queen died right away. Other packages of bees came with varroa mites. Most packaged bees for purchase are available after they’ve already been at work in other parts of the country pollinating in crop systems where the climate is warmer. They’re worn out and not necessarily healthy.
You see, many people selling bees to hobby beekeepers also make money from renting bees for crop pollination. The queens are reared separately and artificially inseminated. When your package of bees is packed for shipping, they plop the newly fertilized queen into the box with the tired little workers who have been to California, Nebraska, Iowa, or who knows where else before they arrive for you to pick up. As these packaged bees became more and more expensive, my “hobby” was yielding the most expensive, tiny jar of honey you could ever imagine.
There were multiple other things I observed when keeping bees. Like they would gang up on the poor, solitary bumble bee trying to feed on the single dandelion in the yard and kill it. Not the dandelion. They killed the bumble bee.
Honey bee killing bumble bee – photo by Cynthia Brast-Bormann
They actually killed a lot of bumble bees from my observations. I didn’t like it. I also quickly noted that with our cool spring climate, the honey bees didn’t like to come out of the hive until sometime in May or June, way after all the trees had flowered. Honey bees don’t like to fly unless the temperature is over 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I was making a lot of sugar water for them. In case you haven’t noticed, the price of sugar is becoming quite expensive.
That’s another thing. Sugar water is nutrient poor. Honey bees, or pretty much any other organism will never thrive on sugar water alone. It would be like giving your kid cans of Pepsi or Coca Cola every day and nothing else. Of course, they would not be healthy. They’d probably have a shortened life and die before they became a teenager. Honey bees, humans, and pretty much every other organism on the planet needs a diversity of nutrients to survive. Who out there remembers taking a Fred Flintstone vitamin tablet as a kid? Well, there’s a minimum daily requirement for more than humans. Honey bees need a diversity of flowers, trees, mineral rich soil, and clean water to thrive. They also need to collect anywhere from 20-130 lbs per year of pollen and 120-900 lbs per year of nectar, to sustain ONE hive (Goulson, 2003).
So, don’t we have those things out here in the San Juans? Hmmm. Let’s see. Spring temps don’t warm up until after fruit trees, forest trees, and lots of other native shrubs have already flowered or set off pollen. Our soils are poor and deficient in certain minerals like selenium. There’s a LOT of bedrock, but obviously we have some parcels that are exceptions. Summers are hot and dry. I doubt even in a good season, there’s enough pollen and nectar to support all the hobby hives we have now in the islands.
If you’ve lived here for a few seasons, you might note that summer going into fall we have a dearth of vegetation. Pretty much the only wild plants blooming are our non-native Tansy and California Poppies. Of course, the noxious weed folks urge us to pull all the Tansy. It’s toxic. We should do our best to remove it when possible because if you are keeping bees (and continue to do so after reading this), you don’t want Tansy pollen or nectar in your honey. It will damage your liver.
Back to making my point. What bees are we supposed to save? 1. Honey bees? or 2. Those other bees that don’t give honey, but might actually be better suited for pollinating things we have in the San Juans?
If you pick 2, you’re trending along with me. As an entomologist, I can suggest that supporting native bee species will be much healthier and sustainable for our fragile island ecosystem. Why? Well, native bees are already suited for this geographic climate. Bumble bees, Andrena bees, Mining Bees, Leafcutter bees, along with flies, wasps, beetles, moths, ants, and even spiders are all pollinators that work well in our island habitat. In fact, flies are probably one of our most effective early pollinators for fruit trees in the San Juans.
But won’t honey bees pollinate too? What about my garden plants or my orchard trees? Well, again, it’s really not an optimal climate. If you are still holding out, I can offer additional research that might be convincing. While not particularly applicable to the San Juans, since as I’ve already stated, honey bees aren’t going to be flying when our orchard trees are blooming, current research in mainland agro-ecosystems is indicating that wild bees actually increase fruit set in apple orchards (Mallinger & Gratton, 2014), and strawberries pollinated by wild bees are larger than strawberries pollinated by honey bees (MacInness and Forest, 2019). That’s only two papers, but if you take time to go through and read these, look at their references. You’ll find additional citations indicating similar findings in other studies.
What if we ignore everything you’ve written here and keep ordering packages of honey bees?
Good question. Certainly, you are within your right to order honey bees and keep them. Some folks may be determined to try and raise bees in an attempt to get honey. All I can say to that is good luck! I personally have switched from using honey to using agave as a sweetener, or quit using sweeteners altogether. It’s a personal choice, but also motivated by my own economics as well as my concern for preserving a diverse and sustainable population of invertebrates and conserving diverse and healthily functioning ecosystems. Also, please don’t interpret my position as “anti-agriculture.” That wouldn’t be fair. We have to eat, but I do believe in progress and making better choices as the planet becomes more populated. There are a LOT of people to feed. We need to figure out how to do this sustainably, without displacing our diversity of wildlife or injuring the planet’s ability to support life.
It’s a fact that native bees are being displaced in ecosystems under pressure from loss of habitat and competition from managed honey bees. In their 2018 literature review, Hatfield et al., state that “honey bees displace native bees from flowers, alter the suite of flowers native bees visit, and have a negative impact on native bee reproduction.” Citing Anderson & Anderson 1989; Paton 1990, 1996; Wills et al. 1990; Dafni & Shmida 1996; Horskins & Turner 1999, Hatfield et al., continue by stating, “honey bees potentially impact native bee species by removing available supplies of nectar and pollen,” essentially outcompeting native pollinators who are left without enough food to survive and reproduce.
How many hobby bee keepers are in the San Juan Islands? Are there enough to impact native populations of pollinators? Doubtful we could come up with an accurate number or assessment. It would be great to have a count and map of locations of honey bee hives in the islands. The Washington State Department of Agriculture does have a requirement for beekeepers to register their hives annually with the state (WSDA 2022). This isn’t set up to harass beekeepers, but to be able to contact you should there be an issue of concern, ranging from disease to threats from non-native species such as the Asian Giant Hornet (Vespa mandarinia), a species the state is tracking to prevent further spread. If hobby beekeepers are adhering to state laws by registering their hives, scientists will be better at assessing the impact of honey bees on populations of native pollinator species, especially under the unknown parameters of a warming earth.
What are my recommendations? Well, I’ve shared why I quit keeping honey bees. We have a small orchard and keep a little vegetable garden where my husband helps me grow some strawberries, tomatoes, peas, salad greens, and a few other things. The past few seasons, because of my affinity for bug viewing over gardening, I planted some things near my garden plants that I knew would attract pollinators. For instance, I have Nepeta varieties of catmint near my tomatoes. Those purpley-blue flowers on the catmint attract all sorts of pollinators who also happen to visit my tomatoes, peas, strawberries, and more.
Judging from the diverse collection of bugs (and birds) in our garden/orchard area, I don’t believe we need any honey bees at all for pollination. I love watching the varied native bees, especially the fuzzy bumble bees that pollinate our tomato plants. Oh, one last thing! These native pollinators aren’t out to defend a colony like the social honey bees. This means they are WAY less likely to sting you. Oh, I’ve sustained a sting or two from an occasional bumble bee, but that was because they were hanging out on my blue yoga pants, and I accidentally squeezed them when I was squatting down to pull some weeds. Bugs love the colors blue, purple, and black. I learned my lesson. Now I wear blah, sand-colored clothes when I’m gardening.
Thanks for reading. I hope you will consider my points. This is not meant to be an indictment against honey bees or honey bee keepers, merely a perspective on the impacts we may have on our island ecosystem in keeping honey bees. The bumble bees, and other native pollinators will appreciate not being displaced. They’re worth saving, and thank you for recognizing their role in our food web.
p.s. If you aren’t a beekeeper, but you’re interested in helping native pollinators on the island, establishing gardens with diverse species of native plants will help ensure they have a bounty of healthy and nourishing food sources available. You can check out Washington Native Plant Society at https://www.wnps.org , WSU’s Master Gardener Foundation of San Juan County at https://www.mgfsjc.org , or the Xerces Society – https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/pollinator-plants-maritime-northwest-region for native species lists.
References:
Goulson, D. 2003. Effects of introduced bees on native ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 34:1-26.
Hatfield, R.G., S. Jepsen, M. Vaughn, S. Black, E. Lee-Mäder. 2018. An Overview of the Potential Impacts of Honey Bees to Native Bees, Plant Communities, and Ecosystems in Wild Landscapes: Recommendations for Land Managers. 12pp. Portland, OR: The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
MacInnis, G, Forrest, JRK. 2019. Pollination by wild bees yields larger strawberries than pollination by honey bees. J Appl Ecol. 56: 824– 832. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13344
Mallinger, R.E. and Gratton, C., 2015. Species richness of wild bees, but not the use of managed honeybees, increases fruit set of a pollinator-dependent crop. J Appl Ecol. 52: 323-330. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12377
Bugging You From San Juan Island 