Article on Bees

Following on from last month's article on butterflies, here is this month's article all about bees. Many vegans deliberately avoid purchasing any goods that contain bee products, because like most farmed animals, bees are manipulated in various ways throughout the honey-production process.

Some of the ways in which bees can be harmed include:

Puffing smoke into the hive in order to calm the bees and to make them easier to handle when the honey is being removed. However, calming them in this way increases their chances of being crushed when the comb is manipulated.

Clipping the Queen's wings in order to prevent her from leaving the hive and taking the colony with her.

Artificially inseminating the queen with sperm which has been obtained from decaptitated bees. (Decapitation causes sexual arousal.)

Removing honey from the hive and replacing it with a nutrient-deficient white sugar solution, thus robbing the bees of their natural supply of energy. This practice can reduce their vigour and shorten their life span.

Bees are frequently transported about e.g. when they are rented out as pollinators. During transportation they can suffer stress, overheating and many die in transit.

Queen bees are slaughtered when their egg production starts to decline, usually about every two years and the hive is then requeened.

What To Avoid:

Bee products include: honey, honeycomb, wax, royal jelly, bee pollen, bee venom and propolis.

Honey - Honey is mainly used as a sweetener. It is found in many foodstuffs. Look out for it in cakes and biscuits, cereal and fruit bars, flapjacks, in some types of cereals and in medicines and cough sweets. If you need to use a sweetener when cooking, then use blackstrap molasses, barley malt, concentrated apple juice, golden syrup, or maple syrup instead of honey. Be aware that honey is also added to many cosmetic products and check labels carefully particularly when purchasing soaps, shampoo, bath products etc.

Royal Jelly (bee milk) - Is sold as a supplement in many health shops. It is produced in the hive by worker bees and is fed to the queen bee and also to special larvae, destined to become new queens. (These larvae are produced when the hive starts to get too crowded.) It is reputed to give increased energy and vitality and is often taken as a supplement by convalescents and the elderly. Two grams of royal jelly are produced in the beehive each day.

Wax - Another bee product which is often found in polish, so check labels carefully, when purchasing any form of polish - especially furniture, floor or shoe polish. Bee's wax is also frequently used in making candles and children's crayons and is found in many cosmetics e.g. lip balm. Dental floss is also waxed, although at the time of publication I am still waiting for confirmation as to whether it is waxed with bee's wax or not. Bee's wax is obtained by melting old honeycomb.

Propolis (Bee Glue) - Is a resin which is obtained by worker bees from the buds of trees: it is used to make the hive watertight and to fix the combs. You will find propolis in toiletries (e.g. toothpaste) and in cosmetics and I've also spotted propolis in one make of chewing gum! Propolis is sold as a supplement in health shops too - usually in capsules, tablets or in liquid form. The bioflavonoids in propolis are thought to keep the human immune system healthy and to stimulate the thymus gland.

Bee Pollen - Rich in vitamins and minerals, bee pollen can be used in the production of cosmetics and is sometimes taken as a food supplement, usually in tablet or granule form.

Suppliers of Bee-Free Vegan Alternatives:

Candles

Rudgewick Candles: Produce hand-crafted candles which are free from animal products. These candles can be obtained by mail order from: Unit 413, Cannock Chase Enterprise Centre, Hednesford, Staffs. WS12 5QU. Tel: 01543 428882 .

Polish

Bio-D General Purpose Polish - Use on wood and laminated surfaces. Price for 750ml spray is £3.65. Available from The Natural Collection.

Nikwax Aqueous Wax - Can be purchased by mail order from Ethical Wares. Aqueous Nikwax can be used to waterproof and protect walking boots, motorcycle and Gore-Tex footwear. * Address: Ethical Wares, Caegwyn, Temple Bar, Felinfach, Ceredigion, SA48 7SA, Wales, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1570 471155

Cosmetics

The following vegan companies offer a good selection of vegan bee-free cosmetics by mail order:

Honesty Cosmetics Ltd - Lumford Mill, Bakewell, Derbyshire. DE45 1GS. Tel: 01629 814888.

Animal Aid - The Old Chapel, Bradford St, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1AW.

Dental Floss

Some companies (e.g. Oral B) produce an unwaxed version.

Bees As Pollinators - Their Importance In The Veganic Garden

The bumble bee (Bombus sp.) and the honey bee (Apis mellifera) are excellent pollinators and are very useful insects to have in the veganic garden. Pollen, picked up from one flower, clings to the bee's hairy body and is then lost in small quantities when the bee visits other flowers, gathering further pollen and nectar. These busy little creatures thus ensure that crops, fruit trees and flowers are pollinated and are of such importance that farmers and growers sometimes deliberately rent colonies of bees in order to pollinate their crops and orchards. Almonds, pear, apple, cherry and plum trees all rely on bees to pollinate them.

Bee Plants

There are many plants which are very attractive to bees. In fact many plants go to a lot of trouble to make themselves highly attractive to bees and other pollinators, often developing special adaptations especially for this purpose. Scent, bright colours and the production of nectar are all adaptations which have been developed to encourage pollinating insects to visit the plant's flowers. The insects are thus supplied with food and in return the plants are pollinated, ensuring that their fruits and seeds set and allowing them to reproduce successfully.

The following plants are all good bee plants and those in blue are especially good for bumblebees. Note: Ones marked with a * will, in addition, be visited by many kinds of butterflies.

Many herbs are extremely attractive to bees: lemon balm, basil, *thyme, *lavender, *hyssop, mint, chives, *oregano (Origanum vulgare) and bergamot are particularly popular bee plants. Other plants that are very attractive to bees include: *greater knapweed, *lady's smock, foxglove, *bird's-foot trefoil, blackberry, *dandelion, St John's wort, many species of thistles, *buddleia, teasel, clover, sunflower, phacelia, lupin, poached-egg flower (Limnanthus douglasii) and yarrow.

So, if you want to grow fruit trees/fruit bushes in your garden - or if you simply want to increase the yield from your veganic vegetable plot, then it is well worth planting some of the bee plants listed above in your garden. And you don't necessarily need to plant them in a separate area of the garden either - many of these plants can be interplanted amongst your vegetable crops. Poached-egg plant, for example, makes a lovely edging plant for fruit or vegetable beds and sunflowers grow well amongst a bed of sweetcorn. (See the June 1997 issue for more information.)

Life Inside The Beehive

Honey bees and bumblebees are social bees, living in colonies which consist of a queen, a few drones (males) and many worker (infertile female) bees. The queen's main function is to mate and lay eggs, but she also produces a pheromone which inhibits the worker bees' reproductive glands and prevents further queens from being formed in the hive. As far as is known at the moment, the drones only exist to mate with the queen! Whereas the workers, as their name suggests, do most of the work in the hive. They clean and defend the hive, feed the larvae, make the comb and when they are about 20 days old, go out gathering pollen, nectar and propolis. In addition some of the workers are scout bees, seeking out new sources of pollen and when they find a new source of pollen, on returning to the hive, they pass on the information to the other bees in the hive by doing a special dance, 'the honey dance'. This dance is performed in the dark hive and conveys to the other bees the precise location of the new food source. (Note: It's thought that sound may play a part in this communication too.) If the food source is located close to the hive, then the dance is circular, but if it is more than a 100 yards away, the dance becomes a figure of eight. A honey bee colony can exist for up to 20 years, although individual worker bees in the colony have a short life span of about 30-35 days. Under wild conditions, without human interference, queen bees are thought to live for five years.

Bumblebees do not live as long as the honey bees. The worker bees live for only one summer and the colony dies off in the autumn. In late summer new queens and males are produced and after mating the young, mated queens hibernate for the winter, coming out of hibernation in early spring to establish new colonies. At this time, you will often see them flying round, close to the ground, looking for new nesting sites. Bumblebees often nest in desserted bird or mouse nests in the ground.

The Plight of the BumbleBee

A recent report in The New Scientist (13th March 1999) pointed out that all is not well with the bumblebee. Changes in farming practice are threatening its survival. Bumblebees need large areas of flowers throughout the summer, in order to feed and nest, but many of our former meadows have been ploughed up, or are now being used to graze sheep and cattle instead. And it is this loss of meadow that is believed to be largely responsible for the decline in the bumblebee's numbers. One species of bumblebee may already be extinct, with a further nine species close to extinction or threatened. It is, therefore, vital that plants such as red clover (Trifolium pratense) and bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) are available in order to ensure the bumblebee's survival. Why not help by growing some in your garden? Red clover is a valuable, nitrogen-fixing, green manure crop and is thus well worth growing in the veganic garden. You can purchase seeds from the John Chambers' Wild Seed catalogue (they can be sown in both spring and autumn) and seeds of bird's-foot trefoil are also available from John Chambers. As well as being an important nectar source for the bumblebee, bird's foot trefoil is a useful butterfly nectar plant and will provide food for the caterpillars of the Common Blue, Scarce Blue and the Dingy Skipper. This low-growing plant has a spreading habit and is useful when grown in a mini-meadow.

Bee-Related Websites:

Exploitation of Bees (Vegan Society)

Bees 'Spread Genes from GM Crops'

It was reported in 'The Times' recently (15th April 1999) that the Government is to review the guidelines on the isolation of genetically modified crops because a recent study has revealed that bees can carry pollen four kilometres from test sites. At present, trials to access the environmental impacts of genetically modified crops use 'buffer zones' between the crops and the countryside of just 50 metres - a distance which is obviously inadequate. Results from studies on oilseed rape plants suggest that farm-to-farm spread of oilseed rape transgenes by cross pollination will be widespread. Researcher, Dr John Crawford, from Keele University said " bees carry a lot of pollen concentrated on their bodies. So the amount of pollen getting to a plant could be quite significant".

Further Reading:

Garden Plants Valuable To Bees. (Published by The International Bee Research Association.) This 56 page booklet contains information on 424 garden plants of value to bees. It includes herbs, bulbs, annual and biennial plants, trees, shrubs, climbers and plants that can be used in the wildlife garden.