Celebrate Don’t Step on a Bee Day Every July 10
Poor bees are having enough trouble surviving these days, so let’s not add to their problems by stepping on them, too! Celebrate Don’t Step on a Bee Day on July 10 and watch out for bees in your path.
Don’t Step on a Bee Day is another holiday from the fertile minds of Tom and Ruth Roy. It looks like the idea was to remind kids to be careful when going barefoot to avoid getting stung. In other words, protect ourselves from the bees.
But surely it can work both ways. We can also try to protect the bees from us. After all, the only reason most bees sting us is if they feel threatened by us … And who wouldn’t feel threatened by a big ol’ foot coming down on them? Ouch!
Besides, protecting the bees is actually also protecting us. Yes, it really is. How? Read on.
Bee Lives Matter
Whatever your opinion of bees (honeybees or other bees), their survival is important. Without bees our lives will be in danger, too.
For one thing, they pollinate many of our crops:
- Onions
- Broccoli
- Watermelon
- Coffee
- Carrots
- Sunflower
- Apples
- All kinds of nuts, berries, melons and squash
And so many, many more.
Of course honeybees make that sweet nectar some of us can’t get enough of.
Bees are pretty, too. Their yellow and black bodies are just bright and sunny.
And bumble bees are just kinda’ funny. Seriously. Have you ever really looked at that fat little body just buzzing through the air? It’s cute!
Bees are Social
You probably already know that bee colonies are social places. Each bee has a job to do to keep the hive healthy.
The bees talk to each other using dances. Some dances tell other workers where to find pollen.
Other dances help a new queen and her workers find a good spot for a new hive. You see, in a good, healthy colony there will eventually be more worker bees than that one colony needs. So the workers feed one of the new baby bees a special honey to turn her into a queen. When she’s ready, she leaves and takes the extra workers with her to start a new colony.
Some of those workers scout out good spots for the new hive. They tell the others about them and choose the winning location with a vote of sorts.
Bees are in Danger
Since about 2006 or so we’ve been hearing about bee colonies just disappearing. This phenomenon has been called Colony Collapse Disorder, and it has farmers and scientists worried.
Scientists have come up with a variety of theories about the problem. But no one idea seemed to completely explain the phenomenon. It’s possible a combination of stressors is to blame.
- Parasites. Collapsed colonies often contain Varroa mites. It’s possible the mites or viruses they carry may harm the bees.
- Pathogens. Other viruses or fungi may be infecting the bees.
- Pesticides. Specifically a kind of pesticide called neonicotinoids. We started using these in the 1990s in place of DDT because they’re safer for humans (although maybe not as much safer as we thought). These pesticides get into all parts of the plant, so when the bees collect the pollen they’re also getting a dose of pesticide, which may be making them sick.
Even worse some bees, including honeybees, seem to prefer nectar with these pesticides. So they may be eating more of it than we thought.
There’s lots of conflicting information still, but it’s possible that even if the pesticides don’t kill the bees outright, they may weaken the bees and make them more vulnerable to things like mites and viruses.
A decrease in plant diversity probably isn’t helping either.
Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficial, bee-friendly holiday.
Ideas For Celebrating Don’t Step on a Bee Day
Basically, don’t step on a bee!
Actually you probably don’t want to step on a bee any day. But especially on this day.
According to the Roys, the day is a reminder to everyone “that now is the time when going barefoot can mean getting stung by a bee.”
So apparently their motivation is to avoid hurting yourself.
Which is a great goal for any day.
But hopefully you’d also want to avoid hurting a bee. Because as we’ve seen, bees are amazing and important little critters.
If you’d like to not only avoid hurting bees but maybe actually help bees, you can also make your yard bee-friendly.
Lots of bee-friendly flowers add beautiful color and variety to your flower beds:
- Daisies
- Marigolds
- Crocus
- Wild lilac
- Echinacea
- Snapdragons
- Hosta
- Zinnia
- Aster
- Goldenrod
Choose several different flowers that bloom throughout the season so your bees have food from spring through fall.
But be careful about where you buy your plants. Some large garden centers use neonicotinoids on their plants. So by planting those you’re attracting bees to flowers that may be harming them. :( The good news is more and more nurseries have been avoiding neonicotinoids, so you’re less likely to find plants treated with them at your store.
And of course, don’t use neonicotinoids in your garden. In fact, whenever possible, don’t use insecticides at all. Biological pest control can often work quite well. Some of the same flowers that attract bees also attract ladybugs and lacewings.
If you do need to treat pests, this article has some good options. If you’re using sprays, try to spray when bees are less active, like dawn and dusk. Pesticides like Pyrethrum and Neem oil are bad for bees when wet but safe when dry.
Insecticidal soaps and sulfur seem to be relatively safe for bees, but it would still be best to spray when they’re not around.
So will you be on the lookout for bees on July 10? And every day?
