If we do not start to protect bees right now, we will not see a scene like this in the future!
-Mengchen Xu
About this Page
This "Academic Writing" page contains my overall Advocacy
Essay. The Advocacy Essay is an assignment of my Writing 39C class which is an essay tries to advocate my audience to care about animals. I transform the academic essay into this page to fit the genre of webpage. You can click here to see my full Advocacy Essay with works cited. (you can find the source of the images by clicking on the images)
Where Are Our Pollinators?
Introduction
“Pollinators such as bees, birds and bats affect 35 percent of the world’s crop production'' according to University of California, Berkley’s Science Daily article “Pollinators Help One-third Of The World's Food Crop Production”. Among all the pollinators, bees are the most common pollinators which are highly involved in our daily life. With special move patterns, bees and their social behaviors attracted the attention of scientists all over the world. The study of social behaviors of bees started very early which can date back to 1969 when scientist Charles D. Michener published his research article “Comparative Social Behavior of Bees”. The social behavior of bees is a research topic that is widely studied even until today.
An Abstract of this Page
I will briefly review three scientific studies of bees and their complex social behaviors to set up the information base for this advocacy essay in the next section. I will begin with the observational study, ÄŒerná, et al.’s neighborhood society of solitary bees study which was published in 2013. This neighborhood society of solitary bees study focused on the nesting dynamics and neighborhood society of solitary bees. Next, I will talk about Amsalem et al.’s reproduction and social behavior in bumble bees research. This research was published in 2014, and it mainly studied the role of juvenile hormone and vitellogenin on reproduction behaviors of bumblebees. At last, I will analyze Beggs and Mercer’s 2018 research article which studied the impact of biogenic amine modulation on sociability and nestmate affiliation of eusocial honey bees. After I reviewed those three scientific studies about bees and their social behaviors, I will raise the problem of pesticides, which are harmful to bees and their social behaviors. I will be specific about the pesticides issue in the problem section. Finally, I will provide governmental and grass root solutions to the bee problem I raised and advocate my audience to protect bees.
The main characters are bees!
Bees are very important species that can help many plants to grow and provide honey to human beings. I want people to be aware of the substances that can potentially influence bees complex social behaviors, and human activities that are killing bees from this essay. My goal is to let people understand the important role that bees play in our daily life, and to advocate them to protect bees. Protecting bees is protecting the earth and ourselves!
A short video about Bees
Literature Reviews: Set Information Base
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Bees and Social Behaviors
First: Nesting in aggregation!
Cerna et al., who are scientists of the department of zoology at Charles University in Prague, conducted a research “Neighbourhood Society: Nesting Dynamics, Usurpations and Social Behaviour in Solitary Bees” which studied the nesting dynamics and social behavior on solitary bees. Nesting in aggregation means “If a number of organisms are close together, yet do not influence one another, one may speak of the group as an aggregation but not as a society”
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Solitary bees perform nesting in aggregation because it consumes much time and energy to build a new nest. Cleptoparasitic female bees can steal and usurp the nest structure after they removed the host cells (Field, 1992). Nesting in aggregation of solitary species often involves other conspecific females (Alcock, 1975).
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Cerna et al. found that “nest owner replacements are very common in all of the studied species in all of the observed years”. Their study indicated that social interaction, including “communal nesting” behaviors, is very common in solitary bees.
Second: Reproduction and Social Interaction
Besides solitary bees, social behavior among eusocial bees is worth research as well. Toth, A. L., et al. (2007) said in their research article that “eusocial behavior evolved from solitary behavior via changes in expression of existing ‘toolkits’ of genes”. Etya et al., scientists at Penn State University with specializations on bees and social insects, believed that “ancient molecular and physiological pathways became modified and expressed in new contexts, thereby leading to profound behavioral and physiological changes”. They conducted a research, “Exploring the Role of Juvenile Hormone and Vitellogenin in Reproduction and Social Behavior in Bumble Bees” to study the effect of vitellogenin and juvenile hormone have on bumblebees reproduction and their social behavior.
For the effect of vitellogenin on the reproduction of bumblebees, Etya et al. found that vitellogenin expression level of queens is significantly higher (6 times) than fertile workers. Fertile queens have a significant high vitellogenin expression level(40 times) than virgin queens. In queenless groups, “workers establish reproductive dominance hierarchies via aggressive interactions” (Etya et al. 4). They found that vitellogenin RNA expression levels between aggressive and passive worker are very different that aggressive workers have a much higher vitellogenin RNA expression level.
Etya et al. also studied the effect of juvenile hormone and aggression behavior on vitellogenin expression levels in workers (Etya et al. 5). The result is that “workers were introduced into peer groups were significantly more aggressive towards their group-mates and were involved in more aggressive behaviors compared to workers that were introduced into the older established groups”(Etya et al. 6). They concluded that juvenile hormone is a gonadotropin in bumblebees but it cannot change the vitellogenin expression level in queenless worker bees.
Third: Nestmate Affiliation
Scientists Susie Hewlett et al., bee experts at Macquarie University, conducted a research “Biogenic Amine Modulation of Honey Bee Sociability and Nestmate Affiliation”, to test the effect of biogenic amine has on the social interaction behavior of honey bees(eusocial bees). In the study, Hewlett et al. said that “mechanistic studies of sociability(tendency to aggregate) and affiliation have been most extensively studied”(Hewlett et al. 1). I finished talking about bee’s tendency to aggregate in previous parts, thus, I am going to talk about factors that affect nestmate affiliation in bees.
Information about Bee's Biogenic. Image from Even Naila et al. study.
In Hewlett et al.’s research, they tested the effect of biogenic amine modulation on honey bees and how it impacts with the bees’ nestmate affiliation choices. They chose dopamine(DA), octopamine(OA) and 5HT in this study since “OA, DA and 5HT have been implicated in an array of eusocial insect behaviours, including group organization and coordination, pheromonal communication, social recognition and resultant interactions”(Hewlett et al 2). Dopamine is believed to have a role in pheromonal communication between the queen and the worker bees (Beggs and Alison, 2009). Hewlett et al. used “sociability and nestmate affiliation test” with two treated groups and one control group in their study (Hewlett et al. 5).
Hewlett et al. concluded that there is “strong evidence for a causal role of DA[dopamine] in bee sociability and group cohesion, and corroborate findings connecting OA to eusocial insect social interactions”. (Hewlett et al. 14) It then shows that dopamine and octopamine can influence eusocial bees’ nestmate affiliation behavior because the treated bees have a higher tendency to form nestmate relation with other bees.
Philosophical Question
As shown in the previous studies, we now know that many factors, including vitellogenin, dopamine, and octopamine, can affect bee’s complex social behaviors,
such as nesting in aggregation, reproduction, and nestmate affiliation. The studies prove the complexity of bees’ social behaviors because so many chemicals can influence their lives easily.
According to Amsalem, Etya, et al.’s article (2014), vitellogenin can affect bees’ reproduction behavior since the queen has higher vitellogenin expression level, and workers who have higher vitellogenin expression perform more aggression behaviors (Etya et al.). In Poquet, Yannick, et al’s scientific article “Modulation of Pesticide Response in Honeybees”, they conclude that pesticides are related to vitellogenin levels in bees (Poquet, Yannick, et al. 420). Vitellogenin level is related to the ability of bee’s tolerance to toxicants (Poquet, Yannick, et al. 420). As it was mentioned in Richard J. Gill et al.’s scientific article“Combined pesticide exposure severely affects individual- and colony-level traits in bees”, they believe that “the role of pesticides in these declines, as exposure to these chemicals, has been associated with changes in bee behaviour and reductions in colony queen production”. Pesticides can cause bees’ disorder in their social behaviors because of the toxic chemicals that pesticides contained.
Vitellogenin, juvenile hormone and biogenic amine, which impact bees’ essential social activities, can be changed with outside chemical exposure. Pesticide is one of the chemical exposure that brings dangerous toxicants to bees. In their scientific article “Comparative Toxicity and Hazards of Pesticides ToApisand Non-Apisbees. A Chemometrical Study”, Devillers, J., et al. tested 158 kinds of pesticides, and found that almost all of them have some toxic effect on bees.
The Problem Defined: Pesticides!
The government organization, Missouri Department of Conservation said that among all the pollinators, “[bees are] responsible for 75% of food production worldwide...One-third of our calories come from bees and 70-80% of our nutrients like vitamins and minerals come from bee pollinated produce”. Bees are necessary for human beings since they contributed tremendously to the worldwide food supply, however, they are facing many severe problems now.
Improper use of Pesticides, the invasion of parasites, and loss of habitat are all problems that bees are facing, and all these problems contributed to the increasing mortality of bees. (Goulson, D., et al.) Among all the problems related to bees, the most controversial and debated problem that cause the loss of the bees is pesticides (Goulson, D., et al.). Pesticides can kill bees.
Problems That Bees Are Facing
(Created by Mengchen Xu)
Colony Collapse Disorder and Pesticides
Pesticides are used by farms starting from 1998. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), one main disease that causes the death of bees, are believed to have related to pesticides (Frazier, Jim, et al.). According to Amateur Entomologists’ Society, CCD is “describe the mass disappearance of worker honey bees from the hive...that insufficient workers are present to maintain the colony”. CCD was first reported by the beekeeper David Hackenberg (Langworthy and Henein). Some beekeepers started to report that 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives lost in the winter of 2006-2007. A colony’s worker bees suddenly lost, and almost no dead bees were found near the hive. The hive will “die” since there are not enough worker bees to help keep the hive (EPA). The CCD situation was very severe that the number of bees in America was not enough to serve food supplies, thus the country had to import bees from Australia to help pollination in the United States (Langworthy and Henein). It is important to control the use of pesticides to help reduce the occurrence of CCD since pesticides have some influences on CCD.
Systematic Pesticides and the Increasing Mortality Rate of Bees
Another important issue that relates to the pesticides problem is the use of systematic pesticides on plants. Systematic pesticides are harmful since they can be absorbed by plants, and the chemical can be applied on plant’s seeds or leaves. (Pleasant 16) Insects can be killed if they are fed on those plants. The most severe problem is that this kind of pesticides cannot be washed because they are part of the plant’s tissues. (Pleasant 16) One report in the Journal of Economic Entomology, published in 2009, included that "When bees consume guttation drops, collected from plants grown from neonicotinoid-coated seeds, they encounter death within a few minutes" (Pleasant 16).
This is a critical problem because if a worker bee brings pollen of the plants that used systemic pesticides back to its hive, then the honey they made may contain bad chemicals. Young bees may die if they were fed with this kind of honey, thus, cause the bee population to decrease. (Langworthy and Henein) Moreover, human beings who eat this kind of honey may get some health problems in their bodies as well. Even though the effect is low in one spoon of honey, but the cumulative effect is not little. (Henein)
The Situation is Extremely Serious Now
Pesticides can cause the death of bees, and pesticides are widely used in the United States. The United States uses more than 1 billion pounds of pesticides every year, and the amount of pesticides used each year worldwide is around 5.6 billion pounds (Alavanja 1). The use of pesticides is very dangerous because they can kill many bees, thus reduce the bees population. Since bees are important in pollination and they pollinate a large amount of food we eat, if bees population decreases dramatically, we would probably do not have enough bees to pollinate crops. Human beings will not have enough food to eat if the number of bees decreases intensively. Unfortunately, the fact is that the number of bees indeed decreases heavily in the past years. Below is a graph of data which shows the honey bee colony loss in the U.S.(Figure 1)
Actions should be taken immediately to help save the bees from harmful pesticides.
Figure 1. The Result of honey bee colonies loss between 2006-2019. Annual loss includes winter loss.
No Simple Solution: The Situation is Complex
A Short Video
A Video By PurdueExtensionEntm that briefly explained the situation
The pesticides problem on bees does not have a simple solution because the use of pesticides involves other problems. Pesticides, with the function of protecting plants, started to be used widely in the United States since 1972 when EPA set laws to regulate its use. (Goldman) Many pesticides protect plants by killing harmful insects. Pesticides were widely used because it “protect crops from pests, ... significantly reduce the losses and improve the yield of crops, such as corn, maize, vegetables, potatoes, cotton as well as to protect cattle from disease” (Carvalho) Webster et al. said that countries will suffer “considerable economic losses” if pesticides are not used. (88) Therefore, pesticides were originally used for a good reason. The goal of using pesticides was to solve the food problem that everyone can eat enough food and be healthy. However, the consequence was not as what was expected. Even though pesticides help crops to grow better, as mentioned in the previous parts, it indeed has some bad influences on bees, which can potentially cause crop loss. The problem of pesticides on bees is complex that not a simple solution can be provided to protect both bees and crops easily. What are the solutions that can solve the problem?
Many Solutions are Provided
There are many solutions provided in order to solve the problem of bee decreasing. For example, Keeping Backyard Bees, who is a joint organization with Mother Earth News and Grit magazines, provides many bees related information to inform people about bees’ knowledge. The organization encourages people to provide a simple artificial shelter for bees to stay in extremely cold weather. Reported by National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), many states have enacted legislations in protecting bees. For example, the use of pesticides is not allowed “on or after a certain date unless certified otherwise” in Maryland. (NCSL) Also, many bees related organizations, including The Rainforest Site, which is a well-known organization with the aim of protecting the forest and environment, are encouraging people to help bees by signing petitions to urge the EPA to ban the use of pesticides.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), with a mission of “protecting human health and the environment”, is the government agency who is responsible for the bees and pesticides problem. Pesticides is such a huge environmental factor that EPA has taken some actions to help solve the problem. They create a policy called “Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products” which “protects bees from agricultural pesticides spray and dust applications while the bees are under contract to provide pollination services”. (EPA) Besides the policy, EPA along with tribal agencies are developing and implementing local pollinator protection plans, called Managed Pollinator Protection Plans (MP3s). EPA is using MP3s to “address potential pesticides exposure to bees at and beyond the site of the application”. (EPA) The plan also gives local government the right to manage the pesticides exposure problem on bees based on their own situations.
Not satisfied with EPA
Even though EPA implements the “Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products”, many people, including environmentalists, beekeepers, and bee lovers, do not satisfied with what EPA did, because EPA did not ban the use of all pesticides, but allow the use of some pesticides. Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, the assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, annocende in a statement to “expanding the allowance” of the use of sulfoxaflor that "EPA is providing long-term certainty for U.S. growers to use an important tool to protect crops and avoid potentially significant economic losses, while maintaining strong protection for pollinators”. (EPA)
There are many petitions on Twitter to urge the EPA to deal with the pesticides problem. Click on the image above for more information.
EPA did this because many farmers are requesting the allowance of this kind of pesticides to kill bugs on crops. EPA did research and found that sulfoxaflor is not that harmful to bees, thus they expanding the allowance of using it. However, many environmentalists do not agree with EPA’s action. "Scientists have long said pesticides like sulfoxaflor are the cause of the unprecedented colony collapse. Letting sulfoxaflor back on the market is dangerous for our food system, economy, and environment." said Greg Loarie, an associate attorney of the environmental group Earthjustice.
The most effective governmental solution
Even though many people do not agree with EPA’s policies regarding the use of pesticides on crop, it is still the most effective way to help reduce the number of bees killed by pesticides. It is understandable that many people want EPA to ban the use of pesticides because bees will be kept away from pesticides completely in this way, but it is almost impossible. According to EPA’s “Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage 2008 - 2012 Market Estimates”, the amount of expenditure on pesticides in 2007 in the United States is 10 billion dollars (7), and this amount increases to 16.5 billion dollars in 2012. The huge amount of pesticides used in the United States indicates that the agriculture in the United States really relies on the use of pesticides.
Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products
Click on the image above to read the full Policy
EPA also has a role in regulating the United States’ agriculture quality as well. If EPA banned the use of pesticides, what will those farmers do since they really need to use a lot of pesticides every year. Thus, EPA came up with the most effective policy, “Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products”, to protect bees. EPA protects bees from harmful pesticides by restricting the time when farmers can use the pesticides. EPA also banned the use of some pesticides to protect pollinators such as bees. In all, Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products is the most effective policy to solve the pesticides problem.
Grass Root Solutions
Go to Honey Bee Health Coalition's website for more information
by clicking the image above
Besides the efforts of government agencies, the general public can also do something to help bees from decreasing. Many organizations on social media are providing so many simple ways that one can use to save bees. For example, the Honey Bee Health Coalition, which is a formal organization with ex officers from the U.S. Agriculture Department, provided many simple and easy methods that the general public can use to save bees. The organization encourages people to plant bee forages in their garden. (Honey Bee Health Coalition)
Also, the organization Bumble Bee Trust, a formal bees keeping organization, posted ways we can save bees, such as “Grow more flowers, shrubs & trees”, “Consider control methods appropriate to your situation and only use pesticides if absolutely necessary” and etc. These are all easy things that a general person can easily do. Other than these grass root solutions I provided, people can always use social media to find reliable organizations and follow their instructions on how to protect bees.
Click on the image above for more details
Advocation
Bees are important to our daily life, and they are facing extremely bad situations now. Everyone can do something to help them. Everyone’s single step combined can be a huge step in saving the bees. Thus, go and do something now! What you did for bees do not only help them, but also help ourselves!
