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The Boulder Weekly on bees and Bee Guardians by Dana Logan When she starts talking about bees, Julie Finley’s face lights up. Her voice comes alive. “They’re like watching a river go by or a fire — you can just get absolutely mesmerized… Aren’t they captivating?” she says. Finley, the garden director for Boulder’s Growing Gardens, has been keeping bees for more than 10 years. As the teacher of a series of hands-on classes to encourage members of the Boulder community to experience the culture of the honeybee, she helps beginner beekeepers learn the basics. But she thinks the real teachers are the bees themselves. “There isn’t anybody who knows more about making honey and pollinating than these guys,” she says. But as enthusiastic as she is, she’s also worried. And with good reason. Since November 2006, there have been reports of honeybees flying away from their colonies and disappearing. Not one or two bees. Not even 10 or 20. Beekeepers are reporting losses of between 30 and 90 percent of their hives. No one seems to know exactly why the bees, which are normally very social creatures that rely on their colony and their queen, aren’t returning to the hive. But the phenomenon, termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is more than alarming — it’s being called a global crisis. So why is it a crisis? Why should humans even care what happens to the honeybee? “Because they like to eat,” says Tom Theobald, owner of the Niwot Honey Farm and founder and former president of the Boulder County Beekeepers Association. CCD, which is affecting honeybees across North America and throughout the world, is a major threat to the continued viability of our food sources. More than 90 species of plants are pollinated by honeybees, from apples and avocados to cucumbers and strawberries. The list of U.S. crops that rely, in part or in whole, on honeybee pollination goes on and on. Almonds, for example, must have honeybees for pollination. No bees equals no almonds. The USDA puts the agricultural value of honeybees as pollinators at more than $15 billion. Furthermore, every third bite of food that you put in your mouth relies on honeybees. So if honeybees disappear, the variety and quality foods that Americans eat will be drastically different from what we have now. “This food doesn’t just come from the grocery store,” says Theobald. “One-third of our food is at risk if this collapse continues.”
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