The bees need our support – but some nature lovers unknowingly harm the insects through a well-intentioned relief campaign: If you feed exhausted bees on the balcony or in the garden with honey, you can infect them with the dangerous foul brood pathogen, warns the German Beekeeper Association (D.I.B.).
Warm weather is the order of the day – the balcony and garden season has begun and, thanks to the “corona insulation”, many people are now spending a lot of time in their own piece of green. There they enjoy the plants and the animal visitors. The bees are particularly popular here – also because it is known that these important pollinators and honey producers have been doing poorly in recent decades: bee death is the key word.
This decline in populations has several causes: in addition to pesticides and pathogens, the bees are suffering in many places from the lack of food. As the German Beekeeper Association reports, many nature lovers want to help the popular insects in their home environment. They believe that they can strengthen weakened bees with a little food in the garden or on the balcony. Why not give back to the bees what they give us – so the thought. That is why they put a droplet of breakfast honey in front of the insects. The campaign also seems to be welcome: one can observe how the bees greedily soak up the honey with the proboscis and regain strength.
Help with risk of infection
But, as the German Beekeepers Association now emphasizes, you can do a terrible disservice to bees: “You hear about these well-intentioned offers time and time again, but they can do the opposite,” says Olaf Lück from D.I.B. The reason: Around 75 percent of all honeys that are commercially available in Germany come from regions in the world, some of which are far away. Under certain circumstances there is a bee disease with great potential for our native bees: the so-called American foul brood. According to research, many imported honeys contain the spores of the pathogen – the bacterium, which are harmless to humans Paenibacillus larvae. They are extremely resilient, durable and infectable for an almost unlimited period of time.
If a bee picks up the spores through the foreign honey and flies back to its hive, it can mean the end of their entire state – and the start of a pandemic. Adult bees are not infected, but they infect their brood with the spores of the pathogen: the larvae, which should actually grow into bees, then turn into a putrid mass. The American foulbrood is a reportable animal disease. The official veterinarian must be informed in the event of suspicion. This then initiates the legally regulated, state disease control. Infested peoples then usually have to be destroyed to prevent the disease from spreading further. This has happened again and again in recent years.
Useful help is the order of the day
Naturally, no nature lover wants to be responsible for such a horror scenario. “Therefore laypeople should under no circumstances feed bees with honey,” appeals Lück. The expert also advises against alternative feed. Offering bees to bees in the garden or on the balcony on a large scale can, for example, cause the later honey quality of the hives to suffer badly.
As he emphasizes in conclusion, there are certainly ways to support the insects in a meaningful way. “Help our bees by offering them nectar and pollen donating plants in your immediate, personal area,” says Lück. Gardens and balconies enable diverse habitats to be created for all insects visiting flowers. A herb-rich meadow instead of English lawn and the planting of flowering native shrubs, hedges and trees can do a lot of good. If you want to ensure a bee and insect-friendly plant society, you will find it on the homepage www.deutscherimkerbund.de of the D.I.B. lots of useful information.
Source: German Beekeepers Association