Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Although we’re concerned about the loss of honeybees from colony collapse disorder, this might ease your mind:

12— You have to think of honeybees as a farm animal. We can grow more of those. And we can produce more honeybee queens, which can in turn, grow more honeybee colonies.

That’s TPW invertebrate biologist Michael Warriner. While we focus on replaceable non-native European honeybees, we’re neglecting our irreplaceable native bee populations, also in decline.

17—If we lose native bees, we can’t necessarily breed more of those because we don’t know how. We don’t necessarily know what kinds of things they prefer – because we’re not managing them. They’re existing in natural habitat that we’re losing. Honeybees are pretty much a domesticated animal we can breed
more of.

Native bees play a valuable role in the ecosystem.

18— They play the biggest role in maintaining native plant communities. And a lot of those plants have to be pollinated by bees. As we lose bees, those plants will be less able to produce viable seed, which means that they just slowly disappear off the landscape.

How to help native bees…that’s tomorrow.

That’s our show…the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series, and funds diverse conservation projects in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.