Text / Chien Li-an Illustration / Da Ya Photography / Huang Chi-feng, Wang Shih-hao

Why does the disappearance of one tiny bee draw the attention of countries around the world, prompting them to invest vast manpower and resources into research?
What lies behind it is not simply the worry of never tasting delicious honey again, but a vital issue that concerns the balance of nature's ecology and humanity's very survival.

"I haven't grown loofah for years, because it all has to be pollinated by hand," says Pien Yu-fen, a farmer who has worked the Yunlin Mayuan Organic Farm for 12 years. In recent years, not only has the number of bees dropped noticeably, but their vitality is nothing like it used to be, and their pollinating power has fallen sharply, forcing many gourd and fruit crops to switch to hand pollination. During the loofah flowering season, you have to tilt your head up and brush the flowers for three or four hours every day, which is not only hot and tiring but leaves your whole body aching, with no energy left at all for other crops. With no other choice, she had to give up on loofah as a crop.

At the other end of the farm, young farmer Chen Chun-nan shares what happened with his cucumbers. Cucumbers that bees pollinated fully grow straight and beautiful, while those only partially pollinated come out curved, becoming off-grade produce. "Take one fen of land: normally you can harvest 2~3 tons of cucumbers, but without bees it might drop to 1 ton or even less, so now cucumbers have been bred to be hermaphroditic."

When crops such as gourds, strawberries or pears are not fully pollinated while flowering, they produce misshapen fruit.

Without Insect Pollination  The Diversity of Crops Will Disappear

"When bees disappear, the first to suffer are gourd and fruit crops, because they almost all depend on bee pollination," says agricultural expert Dr. Chang Shih-yang. The knock-on effect is that crop diversity gradually disappears, leaving fewer food sources. But the impact of vanishing bees doesn't stop there; it will shake the balance and survival of the entire natural ecology.

Professor Yang En-cheng of National Taiwan University's Department of Entomology says that on the surface, the disappearance of bees looks like an isolated phenomenon. But a sharp decline in bees means other pollinating insects may also be at risk of vanishing. "What worries us is that the disappearance of bees may be a chain reaction, or just the tip of the iceberg. Because what we see now is only the bees; we don't see the problems of other insects. How frightening would a world without insects be?" According to statistics, more than a quarter of all insect species worldwide are in decline, and as many as a third are endangered and on the verge of disappearing.

Pesticides Pollute the Air and Soil and Flow into Waterways

Professor Yang En-cheng says improper pesticide use is one cause of the decline in bee numbers. "You spray pesticides in agricultural areas, and you think they'll stay in the pesticide zone?" Professor Yang shakes his head and says that of the chemicals farmers spray, only less than a tenth attaches to the plants, while 90% enters the environment, mixing upward into the air and downward into groundwater. If these chemicals are absorbed by the soil, they degrade the soil and kill insects or microorganisms in it. But what is most worrying is that pesticides entering the groundwater layer spread along watersheds, making the harm far more far-reaching.

In western Taiwan, summer often brings afternoon thunderstorms. When farmers spray in the morning, the chemicals all wash into the streams with the rain that falls in the afternoon. "Even if the dose of pesticide in the water is very low, it can still poison smaller aquatic organisms, or organisms that serve as environmental indicators. The most terrifying thing about neonicotinoid pesticides is that they cannot be absorbed by the soil, and they can remain in water for a very long time."

According to overseas research, imidacloprid will not break down in water even after 5 years, and some neonicotinoid pesticides will not disappear even after 30 years. Yang En-cheng says: "Bees are also insects that collect water. And take dragonflies, which I saw plenty of as a child; now you rarely see them." When natural enemies disappear, the number of insects that harm humans increases, which is also why dragonflies are becoming rarer and mosquitoes more numerous. "The consequences of destroying the ecological balance are beyond anything you or I can imagine."

Organic Farming Is Not Only Friendly to the Earth, It Is Also Friendly to Bees

As bees gradually disappear, how can farmers respond or save themselves? Pien Yu-fen thinks for a moment and says: "It's very hard!" Although some crops can be improved to reduce their need for bee pollination, most crops that need pollination can only rely on hand pollination once bees can no longer work. "But Taiwanese farmers are generally elderly, so crops that require large amounts of labor for hand pollination gradually stop being grown. That way, crop diversity will slowly disappear."

"In pursuit of our own interests, we have unknowingly damaged the habitats of many living things. Through the bees, we learn that the environment really has turned bad." Pien Yu-fen says that the pressing task, besides finding alternatives, is more importantly to bring back this closest little helper of agricultural production. Sticking to friendly farming, using no pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and protecting the land that supports diverse ecology is the mission these organic farmers carry out to practice sustainability.

When bees decline, farmers must hand-pollinate their crops, which is time-consuming and yields poor results.

◎ Originally published in Leezen Weimei Special Issue No. 58, p10~p11

Further Reading >> To Protect Bees, Here's What You Can Do!