Last weekend, a friend and I kicked off our 鈥渢ourist in your own town鈥� day with a visit to the Bastion Square Market, which runs every Sunday in the summer.
The market provides a display of what the artists, artisans and farmers of lower Vancouver Island have to offer. There are real leather belts made individually by hand, fresh produce (available in sizes small to gargantuan), homemade fudge, one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry, artwork of all styles, live music, and locally made wildflower and citrus honey.
(Have you ever had citrus honey? It鈥檚 phenomenal. I can鈥檛 recommend it enough.)
But as we licked our honey samples and explored the displays, I was reminded of something. As idyllic as the market makes our community seem, our artisans and farmers are facing some steep challenges, and I don鈥檛 just mean from an era of increased globalization and exchange of cheap goods at the expense of the local, ethically minded producer.
The Island is facing one of its most wide-ranging and potentially damaging agricultural issues to date, short of global warming itself, and a decade ago, we never would have predicted it.
Our bees are in crisis.
sa国际传媒鈥檚 honey-bee populations have been in a nosedive for years, but three winters ago, beekeepers on the Island lost as many as 90 per cent of their hives. This hit brought it home to us on the Island that our honeybees were in serious danger.
Unfortunately, despite the money that the province is now pouring into research to find an explanation for it, we don鈥檛 seem to be any closer to an answer as to why our pollinators are dying. Beekeepers across sa国际传媒 continue to experience winter hive loss at a rate far beyond the usual 15 per cent. The Canadian Honey Council is reporting an annual loss of 35 per cent of honey-bee colonies per year over the last three years.
As an animal, the honey bee is critical to our agriculture and to our economy. About one-third of our food depends on pollination by insects, and some of this food (such as broccoli) is pollinated almost exclusively by bees.
Aside from the fact that many beekeepers are having to shell out wads of cash to replenish their hives every year, billions of dollars worth of global agriculture depends on pollinating insects like bees and butterflies.
But even though this crisis has been happening across sa国际传媒 and the world for years now, nobody鈥檚 exactly sure what鈥檚 causing it. It鈥檚 quite likely that it鈥檚 due to a combination of causes. Scientists in sa国际传媒 and the U.S. are looking into the possibility of Varroa mites, which are harmful to bees.
Another possibility is that insecticides are harming hive health, especially the neonicotinoid pesticides that are used by corn, soybean and canola farmers. This April, the European Union passed a two-year ban on these kinds of insecticides, but Ontario farmers are pushing back against such a ban in sa国际传媒, arguing (quite correctly) that it will hurt their crop.
The jury鈥檚 still out on whether the Varroa mites or pesticides are more responsible for the decrease in bee populations, but it鈥檚 also clear that the increase in extreme weather conditions is doing its part to harm the already-weakened honey bee hives of Europe and North America.
It鈥檚 too early to draw any conclusions about why the world鈥檚 honey bees are hurting, or why Vancouver Island has been hit so hard.
But while it might be too early to identify the exact cause of the decimation, or what we can do to counter its effects, we can take some lessons away from it 鈥� namely, how important it is to remember that our control over our environment is tenuous at best. The smallest change in circumstances can have disastrous effects on our ecosystems, and therefore on us.
The honey-bee decimation on Vancouver Island should remind all of us how important it is that the choices we make need to be sustainable and ethical, because our ecosystems are fragile. If the honey bees go, we鈥檙e in a world of hurt.
