June 23, 2025: About 4:30 pm, I heard this loud hummm from across the field. Could it be bees?
YES! Very exciting!
Sure enough – a swarm of honey bees had decided to move into one of our empty Warré hives. The bees are crazy loud! (Probably because there are thousands of them!)
(Video can also be viewed on YouTube)
Everyone is going every which way – but everyone seems to know exactly where to go. They are effectively sheltering their Queen. Within an hour or so, everyone was moved in and all was calm.
It’s a relatively warm day (65*F), and apparently a perfect day for setting up a new colony. A hedgerow of blackberries are in full bloom behind the hive, which I’m sure was a major attraction for the new tenants.
Yay! Welcome!
A Little Background: My Journey with Bees
It all started here.
2013 photo. The caption reads, “See the Happy Beekeeper with her New Package of Bees (Photo by Walt Wielbicki).
The image description reads: Seriously. Do you think this person knows what she is in for? Oh sure – it’s like having children – you want everything to go perfectly for them. You want to give them the best home you possibly can.
I purchased my first package of bees in 2013.
I was ecstatic, full of trepidation, overwhelmed, and in awe. I purchased a protective bee suit that made me look like I was preparing for the next moon landing and even made a video to help others get prepared for their first bee installation, too, which I now find quite hilarious (be sure to watch both parts I and II). I went to meetings with other enthusiastic newbies.
Before long, my little colony had swarmed multiple times and I soon had six Warré hives.
We could hardly build them fast enough.
During that time, I was working on my Permaculture Design Certificate, which I officially completed in 2014. My project focused on designing a permaculture paradise for pollinators. My focus, however, was mainly on the honey bees, Apis mellifera, with a nod of appreciation to all the rest.
The “Save the Bees” campaign seemed a good cause, marketed perhaps in part by big money to raise awareness of colony collapse disorder and other issues within the honey bee industry. Honey bees, after all, are not just animals, but big business. According to the USDA, “Honeybees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops in the United States each year, including more than 130 types of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Honeybees also produce honey, worth about $3.2 million in 2017 according to USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).” And according to the Center for Food Safety, “Pollination services are a core component of global agricultural production, valued at over $125 billion annually. In the U.S., the value of pollination services is estimated to be $20-30 billion annually.”
However, as the honey bee populations in my own backyard increased, I began to question the wisdom of my efforts. What were the impacts of my adding all these invasive species to our local ecosystem? Did high populations stress their immune systems so they would be more susceptible to mites and diseases? Was it necessary to medicate hives if I provided a lot of medicinal herbs (oregano, thyme, echinacea, etc.) for them to make their own medicine?
And here was the big one: were there so many of them that they were outcompeting the other bees, beetles, and other pollinators for food? (Most likely, yes.)
Honey bees are known to enjoy a wide variety of pollen and nectar sources (termed “hyper-generalists”). How would things balance out? Would the native pollinators become more focused on niche foods not preferred by the honey bees? Or would they, too, expand their foraging? If I planted more flowers – both in numbers and diversity – would it result in even More bees, spiraling even faster beyond sustainable levels? And during the summer dearth, would there be enough for everyone? Would one or the other be forced to eat less nutritious foods, resulting in poorer health and susceptibility to disease?
Some of these very questions were addressed in a paper I found online in the Journal of Animal Ecology: “Evidence of exploitative competition between honey bees and native bees in two California landscapes,” by ML Page and NL Williams, published 29 June 2023. The answer: Maybe. Maybe not. It depends. More research is needed.
And yet another question, would the addition of honey bees attract more predators, such as ants, wasps, hornets, rodents, birds, or even bears? (Not as likely, but possible; bears got into a neighbor’s hives one year – yikes.)
Aggh! Nature can be so complicated! Especially when we interfere!
These were highly introspective questions with no clear answers.
Consider, I had designed my whole permaculture design project around creating a garden for pollinators, but I had focused mostly on Apis mellifera under the “Save the Bees!” mantra of the time. I believed I could help save the world.
And in that effort, I became much more aware of other pollinators and the different roles they play up and down the food chain. For example, a British study stated that moths are actually more efficient pollinators than are bees.
Which then begged the question: Was it worth risking harm to our native species by introducing something that was already managed for economic gain across the country? And hey – that idea that 1 in every 3 bites of our food exists because of pollinators – a simplified soundbite if I ever heard one, but one that makes us all pause and acknowledge the importance of these tiny creatures (not just honey bees) – and also makes us ask, What did people do before honey bees?
According to the Los Angeles Bee Association, Apis mellifera were revered by early colonists. They were brought to this country in 1622 and reached the west coast 231 years later, i.e., 1853. It was a treacherous journey, not without casualties.
So, yes, we have a long and strong relationship with bees for pollination, honey, wax, propolis…
I also give them credit for teaching me to better appreciate the importance of our native pollinators.
It suddenly became ridiculously clear that to save the world, I needed to attract more native pollinators, and to do that, I needed to plant more of the native plants with which they evolved (duh). And if I wanted to attract other animals, such as birds, I would need to attract all kinds of insects, not just bees – especially the kind that lay larvae (like moths), which provide a high-calorie soft food for hatchlings. Did you know that more than 5,000 caterpillars are needed for just a single clutch of chickadees? (Chickadees are one of the more abundant birds at our feeders all year round. And here I used to complain about our teenagers always being hungry).
It’s hard to comprehend … here I am trying to create a buggy world while all these other people are spraying bug repellants like some kind of air freshener. I am gagging.
Well, in the sequence of things that happen, “my” bees died out. Although the hive autopsies did not rule out disease, I suspected that most died from our wet and windy winter weather, various predators who either ate the bees, their honey, or both (not bears), and/or an inability of the bees to access the food supply when it mattered most.
Each loss was devastating; I felt like a total failure. Plus, at one point, I ended up in ER after being stung on the chin, which was a valid response by a rather upset guard bee when I took apart her hive to inspect and add another box.
Sigh. Perhaps “beekeeping” was not for me.
With the honey bees gone, I started to notice a lot of other bees and insects on the Oregon grape, wild mustards, goldenrod, lavender, roses, and the fall asters. The big fuzzy bombus bumble bee types were out in all kinds of weather. Hovering yellow & black striped bees, green metallic bees, sweat bees, and many others, including other insects, such as ants, beetles, ladybugs, flies, moths, butterflies, and more.
As the garden evolved with a succession of bigger shrubs, more perennials, and an assortment of weeds filling in the gaps, I knew for certain that the best way to “save the bees” (with a much more inclusive definition), was to provide more (and better) habitat.
Saving the world, however, will take a lot more work.
I am happy to see much more focus recently on our native plants and pollinators in the media.
And yet… at the same time, I am also happy to be able to provide a place for these “illegal aliens,” such as they are. No, I am not into marketing them or even stealing their winter food supply. They work very hard for it. They also work very hard for us. We are known for using them to make high profits. But the real bottom line is that they are living creatures from whom we can learn a lot if we pay attention.