Super Eco

Photo credit: cygnus921, flickr

You can thank a honeybee for every third bite you eat. And that's not New Age mumbo jumbo.

One-third. That’s how much of the entire human food supply those busy but vanishing bees are responsible for. “Small-but-mighty” doesn’t even touch the humble honeybee’s critical contribution to our way of life, our very existence, and, ultimately, our future. One-third also happens to be the amount of the world's honeybees mysteriously abandoning their hives because of a bizarre epidemic called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Think of it. Without the endangered honeybee, we’d all but starve. How far—or, in this case, how close—are you willing to go to save earth's most prolific pollinators? Would you keep and care for a few THOUSAND buzzing bees in your own backyard?

If the answer is yes, first, you're a braver soul than me. And, second, this Daily Green backyard beekeeping primer—coupled with ample time, space, patience, and some pretty darn thick skin—just might be your honey-sweet, hyper-locavore ticket to reconnecting to the earth, the foods you eat and the cute, fuzzy buzzers who pollinate most of it. (Scratch that if you're an apiphobe whose allergic to bee stings, like two males in my own growing hive.)

Rumors are buzzing (sorry, I couldn't resist) that a nasty, nicotine-based pesticide, one in a toxic cocktail of 14 other pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, is at the core of the global CCD crisis. While we can’t cure the toxic fallout of a broken agriculture system, the rising tide of GMO produce and the plight of the honeybee all at once, all on our own, we can initiate change from the peace and quiet of our own backyards. And, who knows? In time, your homespun (optimally organic and sustainable) honey might be ripe enough to rock the local farmer’s market.
 
If bees by the bunch give you the hebe jebes, try planting a bee-friendly flower garden instead. If not, be like my friend Maryam and meditate in a swarm of bees. Om ... ouch!