"There are hundreds of bee species in B.C., but this one appears to live in only one spot in the world and that's at Ripley Lake west of Oliver," said Best, who named the bee to honour the grandfather of his research partner, Graeme Stevens.

. . .

Best, a student of Professor of 91亚色鈥檚 , said the greatest concern of researchers today is the steady loss of bees.

鈥淎 lot have been dying due to pesticides and disease. The western bumblebee 鈥� the bigger yellow, black and white fuzzy bee found in Prince George gardens 鈥� is greatly endangered and disappearing quickly. They are already gone from the western United States,鈥� said Best. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not exactly sure why, but we suspect they are dying off due to disease introduced through other bumblebees used for greenhouse pollination.鈥�

Packer is the author of .

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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Breakfast may be toast if we don鈥檛 take action to save the bees, according to 91亚色聽biology Professor and bee expert Laurence Packer.

鈥淐onsider breakfast. Eggs, maybe a slice of watermelon, toast with butter and jam, and a cup of coffee with a dash of milk鈥�.The only item in the list that bees do not play a direct role in producing is your toast, since wheat is pollinated by wind,鈥� Packer writes in his new book, .

Whether pollinating seeds eaten by chickens that lay eggs, or pollinating alfalfa for cows that produce milk, bees are vital to our food supply, Packer says. Many fruits and vegetables would all but disappear in a world with few bees and coffee would be very expensive. Although we could get sufficient calories from crops that do not rely on bees, we would be much less healthy, he says.

Keeping the Bees, published by HarperCollins,chronicles Packer鈥檚 travels to every continent except Antarctica 鈭� where there are no bees 鈭� tracking many of the 19,500 described species of wild bees. These beautiful insects are heroines of pollination, Packer says, and cannot be replaced by honey bees, which do not pollinate some plants well and are threatened by Colony Collapse Disorder. Wild bees are also particularly sensitive indicators of the state of the environment, he says.

A wild bee entomologist (melittologist) who has spent decades watching bees build nests, forage for food, choose mates and attack one another, Packer debunks some common myths in Keeping the Bees. He points out, for example, that not all bees are busy; their aptitude for hard work ranges widely, from the Arctic bumble bee that works constantly until it dies of exhaustion, to the cuckoo bee, that collects no food and makes no nests.

Right: Laurence Packer

In a chapter titled 鈥淪exually Transmitted Child-eating Female Impersonators on a California Sand Dune鈥�, Packer describes the natural enemies of wild bees, including the Francisco oil beetle, which tricks young, randy bees into carrying beetle larvae onto their next sexual adventures. Once the beetle larvae get into the female bee鈥檚 nest, they eat the pollen and nectar she is storing for her offspring. Then they eat the offspring.

While this is a gruesome scenario, it is humans that have become the number one enemy of many of the world鈥檚 bees, says Packer. Clearing forest for agriculture improved habitats for many bees, but since then we have had increasingly negative impacts, he says. For example, bumble bee colonies that were shipped to greenhouses were later found to be diseased and spread disease to wild bees nearby.

More recently, pesticide use has been shown to affect the foraging behaviour of bees, so they bring less food home, and produce fewer offspring. Global warming, the introduction of invasive species, and habitat fragmentation have also led to worldwide concern about bees.

The solution begins in our own backyards, Packer suggests 鈥� in his case, in a small downtown Toronto backyard with a wooden grape arbour where large carpenter bees nest, raspberry canes for small carpenter bees and masked bees, and soft brickwork for orchard bees 鈭� all in all, homes for about 30 species of the 100 species found in Toronto.

In addition to providing nest sites, Packer urges readers to grow native species plants, refrain from pesticide use, buy organic food when possible, encourage bee-friendly practices by government, and walk on the grass. If enough of us do it, he says, the bees will nest in the sloped sides of that footpath.

Members of the Packer Lab at 91亚色 conduct a wide variety of research on bee biology. The author鈥檚 proceeds from sales of Keeping the Bees will be dedicated to bee conservation research by graduate students.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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鈥淏oth at the provincial level, and even at the national level, you have dozens of species of songbirds that are in serious decline,鈥� says Bridget Stutchbury, author of Silence of the Songbirds and : Investigating the Secret Lives of Birds.

Stutchbury, in 91亚色鈥檚 , was scheduled to be in Fredericton on Thursday to deliver a public lecture on the severity and the impact of the province鈥檚 songbird decline.

Stutchbury said the causes for the decline are plentiful. Pesticide use and deforestation are two. Coffee is one of the biggest culprits in the case of migratory birds, she said, because forests are cleared to make way for the coffee plantations, pushing the birds out of their refuges. 鈥淭he sun-grown coffee is grown the way we would grow corn, completely out in the open in these massive fields. Row after row after row of coffee plants and not a tree in sight,鈥� Stutchbury said.

Switching from sun-grown coffee to shade-grown coffee that鈥檚 grown in the forest would be a step in the right direction, she said. Reducing pesticide use and encouraging sustainable logging practices are other ways to stop the decline.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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