**The Cape Honey Bee’s crucial role in South Africa’s food security and biodiversity conservation**
In South Africa, the Cape Honey Bee is often underestimated but plays a vital role in maintaining the country’s food security and biodiversity. These small but mighty insects are essential for pollination, a process that is essential to food production.
In a recent presentation, Shelly Fuller, WWF South Africa’s Fruit and Wine Programme Manager, highlighted the importance of pollination for regions like Grabouw in the Western Cape, where 80% of the country’s apples and pears are produced. The region relies on pollination for both domestic consumption and exports.
Approximately half of Grabouw’s production is for export, while Langkloof accounts for nearly 20%. Understanding the relationship between bee populations and agricultural production is crucial, especially in areas where the veld (wild grassland in South Africa) provides the food bees need around farmland.
Several experts and organisations have collected data on the availability of food for bees, highlighting that nature is a vital trading partner, providing insurance and resilience. One key initiative is WWF’s “Farming With Biodiversity” report, highlighting how sustainable farming practices can restore and protect ecosystems that are essential to agriculture.
WWF, through initiatives such as Conservation Champions, has been working with the wine industry for over two decades to promote biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Wineries and fruit farms are gradually adopting more environmentally friendly practices, such as reintroducing biodiversity into vineyard landscapes to support bees and other pollinators.
Cape bees face many threats, including habitat loss, climate change and harmful farming practices. A major threat is monoculture, which can weaken bee colonies by exposing them to a lack of dietary diversity, making them more vulnerable to disease and environmental stress.
Declining bee populations and a lack of hives lead to poor crop pollination, leading to poor harvests, fewer food choices, increased food insecurity and threats to the agricultural industry.
While South Africa is struggling to address these threats, efforts are underway, according to Tlou Masehela, head of biodiversity at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment. Incorrect pesticide use and climate change are affecting bees, as is monoculture.
Saving bees requires concerted action by farmers, conservationists, policy makers and the general public. Bees pollinate over 50 crops in South Africa, worth R10 billion a year, supporting the production of fruits, vegetables, nuts and oilseeds.
Without the Cape bees, these crops would suffer dramatic losses, jeopardizing both the economy and food security. Protecting these valuable pollinators is essential to ensuring our food supply and ecosystem stability.