With spring just getting buzzing, Rocky View County and the City of Airdrie will be co-hosting a presentation from the Alberta Native Bee Council at Genesis Place Recreation Centre on April 26.
The seminar, entitled Native Bees 101, seeks to raise awareness of the conservation concerns facing wild bees in Alberta, and inform the public about these native species’ important role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
Megan Evans, president of the Alberta Native Bee Council, will be one of the guest speakers for the event.
Evans said the biggest misconception she’d like to clear up about bees is when organizations talk about saving the bees, it’s not the common honey bee they should be concerned about, at least from a conservation point of view.
“Honey bees are a non-native species, and we have lots of honey bees in Alberta,” explained Evans. “In fact, Alberta has over 40 per cent of Canada’s honey bees, and they are a really important part of our agriculture system.
“They are an important species, but they are not a species of any conservation concern.”
Not only are honey bees not in any immediate danger conservation-wise, but Evans said they are also heavily tracked and monitored by the Alberta government.
“Beekeepers unwrap their hives in the spring and they know immediately what the status of those bees are – and they are required to report back the status of those hives to the provincial beekeeper every year,” she confirmed.
That, sadly, cannot be said for Alberta’s 370 native bee species, many of which are listed as being at risk and of concern from a conservation perspective.
“So every year in the spring, we get an understanding of what our honey bees are doing, but there are 370 native species of bees in the province that we don’t know necessarily how they are doing,” Evans explained. “We can’t unwrap their hives .. So 370 species – that rivals bird diversity. And it is twice as many as all the mammals, fish, amphibian and reptile species combined. That is tremendous, and we need to do more to understand what species we have, where they are, and how they are doing.”
And while honey bees, which are listed as a managed livestock species, play a vital role in pollination in Alberta, Evans conceded they tend to be focused mainly in areas of intense crop production. Native bees, on the other hand, are pollinating everywhere.
“They are not only important in those natural systems where they are pollinating the wildflowers and native plants which provide ecosystem services, and are really important to a healthy ecosystem, but they are also important in those agricultural areas,” she said. “The irony there is, in many ways, current agricultural practices are kind of counterproductive toward having robust native bee populations, and in some ways, may increase our reliance on bringing in managed pollinators like honey bees to pollinate crops.”
If there is one take-home message Evans hoped those coming out to the Native Bees 101 seminar at Genesis Place would remember, it’s that everyone has a role to play in helping conserve Alberta’s native bee species. It might just be as simple as leaving a few bare patches of sandy soil or rotten logs in a homeowner’s landscaping to provide homes for nesting bees, Evans added, or planting a few native species of wildflowers from verified seeds into their gardens or balcony pots.
“I would say everybody can do something to help bees,” she stated.
For more information on wild bees visit the Alberta Native Bee Council website at albertanativebeecouncil.ca. To obtain information on how to purchase verified Alberta wildflower garden seeds, visit the Alberta Native Plant Council website at anpc.ab.ca.
The free Native Bees 101 seminar starts at 6:30 p.m. on April 26. Those attending online or in person must pre-register through eventbright.ca, as seating is limited.
