Economic and Social Research Council
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Bonding with bees
What are the links between human and bee societies, and why are bees so important to us?
Most people have heard that bee populations are in decline, but why is it that the public has become so passionate about these creatures? Urban beekeeping is on the rise in cities across the world and gardeners are planting wild flowers so that bees can forage. Protestors dressed in bee costumes have even staged demonstrations on behalf of bees outside government buildings.
Anthropologists Dr Rebecca Marsland and Dr Kate Milosavljevic, at the University of Edinburgh, are investigating the links between bees and human societies in their project Beelines.
That our societies depend on pollinating insects is clear. In the UK insect pollination is worth £400-£500 million a year. Across the world glasshouse pollination of tomatoes and soft fruits depend on the supply of commercially reared bumblebees. Every year, two thirds of the honeybee population in the US are transported to Central Valley to pollinate the almond trees that produce 90 per cent of the world's almond crop.
But these activities, on which we depend for much of our food supply, are in jeopardy because of complex threats to bee populations including a decline in wildflower forage, the spread of disease, and the use of pesticides and beekeeping practices.
Deep connections
The relationship between humans and bees, especially honeybees, runs deeper than the economies of food security. Bees are not the only creatures that pollinate our food-producing plants, yet we do not see hoverflies in advertisements for beauty products or on packets of wildflower seeds. Honeybee societies have inspired humans to think about the ways in which we live: from Aristotle who saw the bees' 'king' as evidence of the political organisation of bees, to the Tudors who found in the organisation of honeybees evidence for the natural status of the monarchy, up to the contemporary biologist Thomas Seeley who recommends that we learn from bees' techniques of democratic decision-making.
Bees are also admired for their obedience, thrift, industriousness, unity and self-sacrifice to the whole. Their colonies appear to us like our cities, and their social organisation, like ours, depends on language and a division of labour.
Initial findings from this research project are that bees continue to inspire our worlds, and we, in turn, shape theirs. Beekeeping practices reflect different world views, from the industrial big bucks of the pollination industry in the US, to the 'natural' beekeepers who aim to adopt beekeeping practices to recreate how bees might choose to live in the wild. The beekeeping world also reflects controversies such as using chemicals to treat disease and to kill unwanted insect pests, and the human impulse to control the 'natural' world.
Further information
This article was originally published in our Britain in 2016 magazine.
