Smoked Out: What Effect Are Alberta's Wildfires Having On Bees?

With enough smoke in Edmonton to make our lungs burn and our eyes water, you might be wondering what effect the smoke is having on our bees. And if you weren't, well maybe you should be.

The UAlberta iGEM team is working on a Nosema biosensor to diagnose the infection in our precious little honey bees. While Nosema has us worrying 24/7 these days, for the past few days we were also a bit worried about the fire affecting our bees. 

So, I took it upon myself to take a deep dive into figuring out how bad it looks and how bad it actually might be.


Where are we at?

At the time of writing this post, the province of Alberta, which makes 40% of Canada's honey, has burnt through over 577,341.90 hectares of forests. Just to put that into perspective, that is about nine Edmontons. Wildfires are, by their very nature, very uncontrollable and a significant pollutant of our fresh Rockies' air. Blame them for ruining all the nice BBQ trips you had planned for this summer.


So how bad is it for our bees?



While our bees are one of the most resilient bugs around, they might not survive the nuclear apocalypse (like those cockroaches) but they sure can persevere through the testing times that Alberta is facing.

The main threat to our bees from the wildfire is the billowing smoke covering our clear blue skies. The smoke makes it difficult for our bees to fly safely, and it prevents our bees from following the scents of their foraging sites. The air pollutants, according to researchers in Penn State, interact with the plant hydrocarbons to break down the odours. Therefore, the bees struggle to find their foraging sites. The main air pollutant affecting the plant odours is ozone. The team at Penn State realized that the changes in air chemistry impacted the number of bees able to detect food sources in a given time frame. In an ozone-free environment, it took 10 minutes for 20 percent of the foraging bees to find a scent molecule named beta-caryophyllene. When ozone rose to only 20 parts per billion, it took 180 minutes for the same amount of bees to find the scent. The team fond similar results for the six different scent molecules. Basically, our bees are having a hard time sniffing around to make our honey in this smoke.

So what happens to our bees in the wildfire?

Well, most of the bees in our dense forests are filled with mining bees. They are a species of bees that live in tunnels underground Almost 70% of the world bee species live in underground nests. They are harmless to humans and do not produce any honey, so they do not get as much attention as other bees. However, they are still an essential part of our natural pollination infrastructure. A study jointly performed by Utah State and Central Texas Melittological Institute has determined that the heat stress these mining bees experience is survivable. 

The wood and twig-nesting bees, however, are not as successful with their zoning laws. Almost all of them get killed in the massive wildfires we are experiencing as they make their nests in flammable plant fibers. Although these bees are low in their quantity in our dense forests, they are also the main pollinators and the most active bees in these forests. Their loss would significantly slow down the recovery of our natural green space.



Should we panic?

We shouldn't panic about any of our problems if we are looking to find solutions. The good thing for us, however, is that the bees themselves are looking out for us. Oregon State University conducted an extensive 2-year study in the aftermath of the 2013 Douglas Complex fire in southern Oregon. Their bee trapping in high-severity sites showed a large increase in bee biodiversity and population compared to low-severity sites. This led them to conclude that the Earth's pollinators are also nature's phoenix and have not let us down even in our most testing times. The increase in bee population after the wildfires is part of the rebuilding phase, where the bees are pollinating the recovery of the forests and contributing to reclaiming the land.

While the wildfires can cause large-scale destruction and death, these bees give us hope. With the loss of their lives and their livelihood, they are back at it again - rebuilding their homes and lives. We should do our best to make sure our wildfires do not cause irrecoverable damage to these bees.

The small things we can do for our bees in the meantime, wild or otherwise, are:If you see a bee s

• If you see a bee struggling, offer it some clean water to refresh them. Also, wait for the haze to clear before releasing them.
• Consider late Fall feeding for the bees as they might be digging into their winter stores.
• The bees will do their part but we can do ours as well by planting a few trees and remembering the hard work our bees do every day.

- Abbas M.
References

1. http://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/industry-markets-and-trade/canadian-agri-food-sector-intelligence/horticulture/horticulture-sector-reports/statistical-overview-of-the-canadian-honey-and-bee-industry-and-the-economic-contribution-of-honey-bee-pollination-2016/?id=1510864970935#a1.9
2. https://wildfire.alberta.ca/reports/sitrep.html
3. McFrederick, Q.S., Kathilankal, J.C., & Fuentes, J.D. (2008). Air pollution modifies floral scent trails. Atmospheric Environment, 42(10), 2336-2348.
4. Della Sala, D.A., & Hanson, C.T. (2015). The ecological importance of mixed-severity fires: nature's phoenix. Elsevier.
5. Cane, J.H., & Neff, J.L. (2011). Predicted fates of ground-nesting bees in soil heated by wildfire: Thermal tolerances of life stages and a survey of nesting depths. Biological Conservation, 144(11), 2631-2636.