Yesterday’s New York Times had a lengthy first-person account of the disturbing tale of a home invasion1. Dozens came in, none left alive. According to the author, Sarah Kliff, “Honey bees invaded my house, and no one would help.” This nightmare escalated. The family evacuated to the safe-haven of a hotel.
Ms Kliff carries us along from the first sighting, a bee which she crushed with a cookbook (honey recipes?), through an adventure that ends when the family sucks up the bees with a vacuum cleaner. Along the way, the writer discovers that honey bees are not going extinct, don’t need “saving”, can’t be chased away by the smell of citronella or the sound of Alexa making beeping noises, but may end up becoming permanent residents in her house. She was lucky, the bees moved on, unlike the colony I found in this old house on a Pennsylvania homestead fifty years ago.
The writer also discovers that most people believe that honey bees are endangered – exterminators wouldn’t kill them, but they recommended retrieval by beekeepers. Beekeepers wouldn’t help when they discovered that the bees seemed settled inside the walls of the house, a messy situation that requires a bee rescuer who is also a carpenter. (Beekeepers prefer capturing swarms from low-hanging tree branches.) They also surmised that the bees were scouts, not a settled colony.
Two things in the little article seemed important to me. One was the author’s discovery that honey bees are not disappearing from the planet. They aren’t going extinct. She talked to both Tom Seeley and Vox editor Bryan Walsh about it. Walsh was especially forthcoming when he admitted that his 2013 Time magazine article about the impending disappearance of honey bees had, shall we say, fallen short of apocalyptic expectations. Today, we aren’t living in a world without honey bees. In fact, ten years after that famous cover piece, the world has more honey bees than ever. Bryan Walsh has owned up to the poor prediction that brought worldwide attention. You can read his Vox update here.
The Times author had done her homework and learned that the honey bees in her house wouldn’t tip the balance of the world’s ecological stability, whether they lived or died. However, not all of her neighbours got that memo.
I had a vague sense that honey bees needed saving, and some of my neighbors felt strongly about the issue.“They are so important to our ecosystem,” one neighbor advised on WhatsApp.“Their number is dwindling.” She suggested we call a beekeeper.
The other important take away from the article, for me, was Sarah Kliff’s reminder that not everyone is as comfortable as me when it comes to hanging out with bees. I usually forget about the real fright (and legitimate threat) that bees cause for most people. As we enter another bee season, I’ll try my best not to scoff at folks who are so uncomfortable around bees that they spend a couple hundred dollars and two nights away (with family and dog) to escape a potential mortal threat. I know how I’d feel if several dozen two-legged flightless animals invaded my house and looked intent on staying. I doubt that a cookbook would be enough of a defense, nor would I be returning after just two nights at a hotel.
- Thanks to Thomas S. for telling me about this NYT piece! ↩︎
Bad Beekeeping Blog 
I was sent the NYT article by my neighbor who lets me keep a couple of hives in his yard.
What I found interesting is the NYT citing a DC Bee club’s website which said that it was illegal to kill honey bees. I know it in my part of the world, and I suspect most of the US, it’s a myth that it’s illegal to kill honey bees. There are no such statues in Georgia, and I seriously doubt there are in DC either. They aren’t endangered or protected. But beekeepers are fine with keeping the myth alive, it serves us.
Like you I was struck by how terrified they were, and I felt for them. And, I also hate how Xerces calls honey bees an invasive species. Those are heavy words. I didn’t love the article overall.
I’m wondering if you get Bee World. The latest issue has an interesting piece that takes the punch out of the Swiss study showing that honey bees outcompete natives in urban areas. That Swiss study is quoted all over the place, but apparent the math ain’t right, among other things. Might make a good post for you to write 🙂
—Julia
Julia Mahood
pronounce my name: https://namedrop.io/juliamahood
Master Crafts Beekeeper
mapmydca.com http://mapmydca.com/
Georgia Beekeepers Association Vice President, Prison Program Committee Chair
Past President Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association
https://bees.caes.uga.edu/georgia-master-beekeeper-program/master-craftsman-beekeepers.html#Julia
678.448.2576
“One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees…” ― Leo Tolstoy http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/128382.Leo_Tolstoy
>
LikeLike
Thanks for your comments! You have several interesting points, but I’d like to comment on this one:
“What I found interesting is the NYT citing a DC Bee club’s website which said that it was illegal to kill honey bees…beekeepers are fine with keeping the myth alive, it serves us.”
I guess that every beekeeper (and every person) has to decide how enthusiastically we repeat or correct myths. Even the National Honey Board posted the old story that honey from a 3,000-year-old Egyptian tomb was good. I asked them for their source and they took down the little myth. (In reality, archaeologists found a container with inedible dried, black resin that chemical examination suggested had a high sugar content and various pollen. It was once honey.) My feeling is that honey is good enough and bees are interesting enough that we don’t need myths.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good read, Ron, thanks!!
LikeLike
I am a mere hobbyist beekeeper in So Cal. During several drives to New Mexico
and sometime I drive behind the huge semis transporting bees to other states to pollinate. I also have several freinds with hundreds of beehives and the take their bees up North for pollination. These beekeeper keep Africanized feral bee colonies. It is so wonderful how farmers and all beekeepers enough send their Africanized feral bees to perpetuate these nice “friendly” bees to continue their travel to other states. Hey they even gave these bees in Connecticut thanks to all the Department of Agriculture allowing these Friendly bees cross into the states. Too bad they do not allow orange trees because they will spread the Asian Psyllid and other critters. Maybe one, thanks to all the transporting of Africanized feral bees each state will finally be at 100% like Arizona.
LikeLike
Hi Ron,
I’ve been enjoying your posts on the Bad Beekeeping Blog – they’re really insightful! I wanted to reach out and ask how we can get in touch with you. I couldn’t find any social links or an email address on the site. Could you let me know the best way to contact you?
Thanks a lot,
Abellaava
LikeLike
Hi Abellaava, you may send me a note here: ron@aboutbees.net
LikeLike