One of the the nation’s top “bee luminaries,” Jeff Pettis, was featured at a program geared for the general public — “Give Bees a Chance: The Pollination Puzzle” — on June 18 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville. 

In a more specialized address, Pettis, lead researcher of the USDA Bee Lab in Beltsville, Md., spoke on “Challenges for Today’s Beekeepers” on June 17 at the Mountain Horticulture Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River. (A separate story — on his presentation to area beekeepers and the question-and-answer session that followed — appears on Page A8.)

Pettis was the featured speaker throughout Western North Carolina’s National Pollinator Week (June 16-22) activities. The Pollination Celebration, sponsored by Asheville’s Bee City USA program, also included honey-tastings, a silent auction, reception, exhibit and conversations with Pettis.

The June 18 program in Asheville, which drew more than 100 people, was billed as being “designed to provoke questions, conversation and possible answers.” During the hourlong reception that preceded the program, a popular feature was a tasting of honeys from invasive plants, including kudzu and Japanese knotweed.

During the reception, the Daily Planet asked Pettis if he viewed the honeybee as the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” and, if so, does the pollinator’s current massive die-off signify that humanity may be facing cataclysm, too?

Pettis replied that because the honeybee is not native to the United States, the “canary in the coal mine” analogy does not hold up. “For us (in the U.S.) the comparable analogy would be: ‘It’s just general pollinator decline, (serving) as a real indicator that we’re doing something wrong.’” (The stock of most of the honeybees populating the U.S. today originated in Europe, Pettis noted.) 

He added, “The answer (to the bee die-off) really begins in our own backyards.... If you’re trying to maintain the perfect lawn,” then the lawn-owner is contributing to the decline of what he termed “the invaluable pollinators.”

(By some estimates, a third of America’s food supply depends on pollinators — and honeybees are, by far, provide most of that service.

As an alternative to grass, Pettis said, “You can plant local (pollen-producing) plants and shrubs.” 

Pettis further asserted that lawn-owners should consider keeping their landscapes “not just for show,” but to make sure their yards are laden with “high nectar and good pollen” plants and shrubs.

Pettis also mentioned that golf courses, which encompass increasingly large expanses of land are contributing to problems for pollinators that include honeybees.

So what would be his advice to golf course managers?

“Use less water and less herbicide” to have less impact on the environment and minimize harm to pollinators, Pettis told the Daily Planet. “Let your ‘rough’ area be more rough.”

As for small farmers, he said, “Find a way to plant hedgerows for all wildlife — pollinator-friendly.”

Regarding grassy strips along state roadways, he said they could be planted with more pollinator-friendly vegetation. 

Phyllis Stiles, head of Asheville’s Bee City USA initiative, opened the program by noting that “the reason we started the Bee City USA program is we were worried about the bees...

“Every time I eat an apple, I think about a pollinator. That’s selfish of me. I’m speaking with my stomach. ... They’re here to pollinate 85 percent of the earth’s flowering plants... If we didn’t have these pollinating” honeybees, a lot less food would be available. 

With a note of pride, Stiles prompted applause from the audience when she noted that Asheville “is the first Bee City USA. And that’s in no small measure” to having “a forward-thinking City Council and city staff.”

Speaking on behalf of the city, Councilman Cecil Bothwell told the audience, “Thanks to Bee City USA and City Council, Asheville is moving ahead... We’ve required developers to plant trees and bushes on the properties for years. But now we encourage certain ones” that are good for pollinators.

Bothwell received applause, when he added, “We’re also evaluating the use of Roundup” weed killer.

Bothwell also triggered applause when he said, “We’ve got a lot of flat roofs in the city — and we’re trying to get (property-owners to install) solar panels up there and, in the shade, allow for (the legal placement of) beehives” on the rooftops of Asheville. 

Next, a 15-minute video of a TED talk by bee expert Marla Spivak was shown with the intention of giving the audience a quick and general briefing on bees and their plight before Pettis spoke. 

In the video, Spivak noted that “bees are the most important pollinators of our crops. Bees are not out there pollinating our food intentionally. They are flower-feeders. As they move from flower to flower, they end up providing this valuable pollination service.”

She added, “Hand pollination (with a paint-brush) is practiced in some parts of the world, where natural pollinators are not available.” However, Spivak noted that hand pollination is labor-intensive and, therefore, especially expensive in the U.S.

Spivak also said that “tomato growers now put bumblebee colonies in greenhouses” because they tremendously benefit the tomatoes.

“There are over 20,000 species of bees in the world. Very few of these species have evolved into social insects living in complex societies” as has the honeybee, she said.

“A honeybee colony can be considered a super-organism. All of their collective social behaviors are mind-blowing. Bees have social health care... We studied (bee) hygiene. Bees are able to weed out sick individuals from the colony to keep it safe... We found that the bees use propolis as a natural disinfectant. It bolsters the colony health. Humans have known about the power of propolis since bibilical times.

“So honeybees have these remarkable defenses that have kept them healthy and thriving for 50 million years. So seven year ago, we saw bees dying from multiple and interacting causes.”

Bees dying reflect a flowerless landscape and an overuse of pesticides, Spivak said. There were about 4.5 million managed bee colonies in the U.S. in 1945, but today there are only about 2 million.

Spivak also lamented that, after World War II, “We (in the U.S.) stopped planting clover and alfalfa, which are highly nutritious herb plants for bees. Instead, we’ve been using herbicides. And we had larger and larger monocultures. The very farms that used to support bees now are food deserts. These monocultures extend even to crops that are good for bees — like almonds. Now the scale of almond monoculture requres about 1.5 million hives of bees to be trucked in. After bloom, they must be trucked out.”

Further, she said, “There has been a 300 percent increase in crop production that requires bee pollination,” while the number of bee colonies has dropped precipitously.

“Then there’s pesticides... Recently, researchers from Penn State University have been looking at the residue in pollen... They found every batch of pollen has parts of every pesticide, some of which can be more lethal than in original form....

“Added to everything else, bees have their own diseases and parasites... What if I lived in a food desert and I had to travel a long distance to get to a grocery store and I consumed enough of a neurovirus that I couldn’t find my way home?” Spivak said that is often the plight faced by today’s honeybees.

“It’s not just the honeybees. We need bumblebees. We need all of our bees. What are we going to do about this big bee ‘bummer?’”

At that point, Spivak said in the video that the future, in her view, is “hopeful” for honeybees and other pollinators.

 To that end, she advised, “Plant bee-friendly flowers and don’t plant these flowers with pesticides.... Campaign to have them (pollinator-friendly flowers) planted in public gardens, community spaces and set-aside farmland. We need roadsides seeded in flowers not only for our bees, but also for butterflies and migrating birds — from spring till fall.

“We need to diversify our farms to disrupt our agricultural food desert. When bees have access to good nutrition, they’re better able to help our nutrition.

“The beauty is every one of us needs to act more like a member of a bee society, where small acts (of planting flowers and keeping them free from pesticides) result in grand results,” Spivak concluded.

Finally, nearly an hour into the program, Pettis was introduced as the leader of “the Beltsville (Md.) Bee Lab and (as someone who) is a pretty brilliant scientist.”

When Colony Collapse Disorder began decimating honeybee colonies in 2006-07, even attracting the attention of television’s “60 Minutes,” Pettis got the call to coordinate the worldwide research. He was introduced as having “since traveled the world —and his life has turned upside down.” Pettis has a wife and three children.

“He sits with the Capital Hill guys (and) he deals with the commercial beekeepers....

Pettis told the audience, “I just want to say it’s a pleasure to be here and pleasure to be part of Bee City USA... What we did last night.... it sounded like a beekeeper event., but what we were doing was hot yoga.” (The crowd laughed at his reference.) The air conditioner went out and we had more than 100 people there,” so the room heated up.

Regarding a question of if big agriculture is ever going to change, Pettis said, “I like the ‘dysfunctional’ word, in a way. We’ve gone so far in terms of inputs, in keeping high crop yields. We’ve gone to  prophylactically treating crops that may not even need treating. We’ve gotten lazy  in agriculture. We’ve gotten stuck in a cycle. We have a lot of incentive to rotate crops. I think it’s going to have to change. We’re going to have to diversify to more fruit and vegetable production....

Pettis added, “How all of us can drive that change is at the grocery store... You can vote with your fork... You can change the way we produce food in this country. In the United States, we are so animal-protein-centered that a slight change in that mentality could make a big difference.”

As for his views on the use of ethanol as a fuel, Pettis said, “That was one of the most misguided ‘ag’ things. It maybe sounded good on paper — corn and ethnol. The economics were never there. They (through using corn to produce ethanol fuel) just drove the price of corn up. .. It really is bad. “ He said scientists and government officials are realizing it (now). They’re moving more toward cellulose-based products.”

A man asked, “What are the top three or five that, if we changed the way we grow them, it would make the biggest differrence for pollinator health?”

“Corn and soybeans are the two biggest crops driving the problem,” Pettis said. “You have Roundup-ready soybeans. We’re trying to provide flower strips” and other options to counter the planting of crops “from fencerow to fencerow,” a practice that leaves nothing for pollinators to visit.

“The other big thing with corn and soybeans... We used to rotate (crops). We need to get back to that. It’s certainly more sustainable.”

Someone then asked Pettis for his view on almonds and migratory beekeeping.

“We only manage about 2 million colonies of honeybees in the United States and move about 1.2 million to pollinate almonds... We pull bees out of people’s backyards” because the need is so great. 

“Almonds are almost 100 percent-dependent on bee pollination. That’s really changed the beekeeping industry — that migratory need from the beekeeping industry. Almonds are such a high-value crop.” However, Pettis lamented that the situation is “not going to change overnight.”

Addressing Pettis, a man said, “Last night (at a talk directed at beekeepers) you said two-thirds of the problem (with bee die-offs) is pesticides that are used by backyard homeowners... In Asheville, we’re embracing the food movement... But almost all of the homeowners are essentially poisoning our local bee population.” He asked Pettis to address the aforementioned dilemma.

“We were talking about big ag — and big ag gets blamed for a lot because they have a big footprint,” Pettis replied. “In California, you have to report every pesticide that’s used in that county. 

“So big ag is about one-third of that” problem” and “the other two-thirds is homeowners, golf courses, etc. So all of us need to look at what we’re doing.”

Continuing, Pettis said, “There’s a lot more (pesticide) use in general in our backyards than by big ag.... EPA looks at all the data. They do a risk analysis. The bottom line is the EPA looks at it and determines whether there’s reasonable risk. They are very aware of pollinator issues... I think they are working” on the problem, “but it’s not like most government agencies respond rapidly.”

The bee expert also asserted, “EPA can only regulate one chemical at a time... At some point, you realize the mixtures are the problem. You can counter that by having mixed vegetation and less integrated pest management.”

Pettis reiterated, “There’s a lot that a lot of people can do locally — in your supermarket and in your lawn.”