Virginia has lost 40-50% of its honey bee colonies since 2014, and a nursery in Richmond is taking action... urging its customers to help save these essential insects.
Jenny Jenkins Rash is the Garden Center Manager at Sneed’s, a family owned nursery that’s done business in Richmond for 40 years. Lately, she’s noticed something is missing from the lush grounds off Huguenot Road.
“I’ve been here for 12 years and it’s been really heart-breaking to see the decline in bees, butterflies, all kinds of pollinators here. I mean it used to be you’d come out here and there would be all kinds of pollinators flying all over the place. We’re a garden center with hundreds of thousands of blooms that you would think bees and butterflies would be here, and I even have customers coming in. They’re not seeing bees in their vegetable gardens. You can’t have your vegetables or your fruits if they’re not coming, so I think that everyone should have a hive in their yard."
So, she and beekeeper Cath Jude Cowan have started a hive on the premises to show customers how easy it might be to raise their own pollinators. The two don’t even bother with protective gear.
“Cath was bare armed and bare legged, and I was bare armed, and we just got in and you handle them gently and with respect, and she got stung by one bee, only because it flew up her shorts. Yeah, they flew up my britches.”
Many of Sneed’s customers are worried about the bees’ survival and wonder if they should stop using a class of pesticides known as neonics. Rash is not convinced.
“I have one grower that’s out in Riner – Riverbend and the guy who does their integrated pest management, he also is a huge beekeeper, and he keeps his hives on site at that nursery, but he sprays with neonics. He sprays with whatever is needed to keep their plants healthy. He sees no difference in the bees he keeps. He’s never had to deal with the collapse of it.”
She points out that Australia has no problem with colony collapse, although it still uses neonics, and European bees are still dying in droves, despite a ban on neonics several years ago.
Rash tells customers to follow instructions for applying pesticides – avoiding the flowers and spraying at certain times of day.
“The organics that I carry could all kill bees if they weren’t used correctly, so it’s using products as they’re labeled and using them at the right time – probably in the evening, when the bees are going back to their hive. They’re not interested in flowers. They’re done for the day.”
Beekeeper Cowan suggests another problem stressing bees: the rise of monocultures. Like people, she says, bees need a diverse diet.
Having fields and fields and fields of almonds or oranges and mangoes or whatever doesn’t give them the nutrition they need to function, and then also we take their honey to sell it to humans and replace it with sugar syrup, and that’s terrible. It’s kind of like giving people Big Macs for a whole month to eat. It’s going to you’re your system shut down and your brain stop working.”
She also urges customers to capture wild bees or to buy from local beekeepers, because many bees imported from warmer places can’t tolerate Virginia’s seasonal climate.
Some of their ideas were confirmed when the White House held a summit on bees earlier this year and called for $82 million in next year’s budget to promote the health of pollinators. Participants called for more study of pesticides and a national effort to plant more wildflowers.
