Bees in a hive in San Diego, Calif. Beekeeping has been a follow for hundreds of years.
Alan Nakkash for NPR
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Alan Nakkash for NPR
When Kendal Sager lifts the highest of her beehive, tens of hundreds of bees waggle throughout the honeycomb — their cells stuffed with brilliant yellow, orange and pink pollen collected from flowers in Sager’s neighborhood.
Sager, a California grasp beekeeper, stated bees do excess of produce that candy substance: they pollinate crops for a whole bunch of sorts of nuts, vegatables and fruits.
“Even if you don’t like bees themselves, you have bees to thank for the food on your table,” she stated.
This Wednesday is World Bee Day, which was established by the United Nations in 2018 to lift consciousness about the necessity to shield the bugs. So this installment of NPR’s Phrase of the Week appears to be like on the thriller behind bees’ buzzy identify — and why they want extra of our consideration than ever.
Kendal Sager can also be the founding father of Sager Household Farm, which offers academic “reverse” area journeys the place bees go to the scholars.
Alan Nakkash for NPR
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Alan Nakkash for NPR
Why the origin of ‘bee’ is troublesome to hint
Doug Harper, founder and editor of Etymonline.com, an etymology dictionary, stated that not like many phrases, the that means of “bee” has just about remained the identical over time.
“A word like ‘bee’ has always been ‘bee,’ as far back as you can trace it,” he stated.
In response to Harper, “bee” got here from the Outdated English “beo.” Some poets previously would use the time period “beowulf”, that means “a wolf to bees,” to explain bears.
However the actual origin of “bee” itself stays a linguistic thriller largely due to the insect’s lengthy historical past on the planet, Harper stated. Bees have existed for thousands and thousands of years, and beekeeping has been a follow for over a millennia.
“The words that have been here forever, we’ll never know probably,” Harper stated.
An engraving of varied bees engraved by J. Bishop, circa 1800.
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Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures
One principle is that it pertains to the buzzing sound that the insect makes, he added. All through historical past, different phrases have been used to discuss with the pollinator, just like the Latin phrase “apis” which led to “apiary,” or the locations the place beehives are saved.
However “bee” endured like none different. It now belongs to an array of phrases and idioms: making a “beeline,” being a “busy bee,” minding your individual beeswax. That is a testomony to how people have intently watched and appreciated bees for hundreds of years, in keeping with Harper.
“ When I look at words like that, they don’t even look like words. They look like landscape. They’re so ancient,” he stated. ”Those things are sort of rare and valuable just for that.”
The bees aren’t all proper
Through the years, it is develop into more durable to maintain bee colonies alive. That was most obvious final yr, when industrial beekeepers within the U.S. reported shedding almost 56% of their honeybee colonies — the most important decline because the annual U.S. beekeeping survey started in 2010.
“The worry is that at some point they won’t be able to keep up anymore,” stated Mateo Kaiser, a fifth-generation beekeeper in California and the managing director of Swarmed, a useful resource for beekeepers.
There’s numerous components behind final yr’s enormous collapse, together with habitat loss, publicity to harsh pesticides and a tiny, however harmful, parasite referred to as the Varroa mite, which arrived within the U.S. from Asia within the Eighties.
Bees are extraordinarily delicate to adjustments within the local weather, in keeping with Mateo Kaiser, who’s a fifth-generation beekeeper in California.
Alan Nakkash for NPR
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Alan Nakkash for NPR
Extra broadly, bees are extraordinarily delicate to adjustments within the local weather, in keeping with Kaiser. If the spring season is just too dry, flowers and bushes in the reduction of on nectar manufacturing, inflicting bees to go hungry. If there is a sudden chilly snap within the spring, it might set bees again of their progress for the entire season, Kaiser added.
“As the climate changes and becomes less predictable, it becomes harder for beekeepers to know what to expect and to make sure that they’re taking the best possible care of their bees,” he stated.
Every year, bees make thousands and thousands of journeys throughout the nation. Their travels not solely pollinate crops and produce honey, but additionally present perception into how the surroundings is faring.
“Anything the bees are coming into contact with, it’s affecting them and it’s telling us something about the health of our communities, and how local biodiversity and ecosystems are being impacted,” he stated.
Consequently, Sager stated bees have made her extra attuned to the climate and when flowers are blooming. That is yet another method that bees are making an impression on people.
“ So even if you don’t care about the bees,” she stated, “it’s pointing at a lot of other issues that may cause problems for everyone and other species.”
