By Alix Norman
When he’s good, I call my other half ‘honey’. And though I may consider myself the queen bee in the relationship, I will admit – in writing – that he’s the bee’s knees. You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you… yes, it’s all about bees, an insect so ubiquitous that it’s been part of our language, history and culture for time immemorial. But it’s only recently that the world has woken to the realisation that bees are not merely a source of idiomatic inspiration, they are absolutely fundamental to the survival of the human race. Worth 20 million euros to the European economy each year, bees are providers not only of honey, but also of wax, bee pollen, bee propolis and royal jelly. And one of every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honeybees; without bees, we would soon starve.
“We basically can’t survive without the services that bees give us,” says Leni Photi, an avid apiarist and environmental scientist. Leni is the new breed of eco warrior – smartly dressed, eloquent and highly educated. She’s been a beekeeper for nearly a year now, motivated by the desire to bring a degree of sustainability to the community, and is currently the proud owner of over 20,000 Buckfast bees housed in intriguingly named hives. The ‘Maroulla’ Hive, named for Leni’s mother, houses a colony that work slowly but surely, she tells me. And the ‘Jim Morrison’ hive is home to bees that live fast and die young!
Leni is passionate about community and sustainability: she uses organic materials to both create and maintain her hives, from which she expects to harvest up to 20 kilos of honey this year. But it’s not the liquid gold that’s the driving force behind this inspirational young woman. It’s the fact that she is one of the few people on the island privy to the alarming truth: bees are our future. “Quite apart from the fact that they are a fundamental part of their own ecosystem, bees are vital to human continuation,” she explains. “Without bees pollinating most of our fruit and veg, fresh produce would just cease to exist; in effect, we would starve.” And here’s the really bad news: bees are dying out.
“The wild bee populations are virtually non-existent in Europe,” Leni cautions. “They’ve been killed off by the overuse of pesticides. And the same statistic is hugely affecting the USA: as the biggest global exporter of almonds – pollinated, of course, by bees – California is having to import millions of apiaries from the other side of the country.” Everywhere you look there’s a bee shortage and nowhere is it more apparent than in small, unique ecosystems that are isolated by water. Like Cyprus.
“We can’t let Cyprus get into the same situation,” Leni entreats. “Imagine what such a problem would be like on an island – bees can’t fly across from mainland Europe. Our industrial farming system has majorly threatened bees and beekeepers, and there’s also a great deal of unchecked development, which is affecting the ecosystem’s capacity to regenerate itself. Coupled with this rapid urban development has come an increase in ignorance and fear: children raised in cities no longer understand the importance of wildlife. And bees are thus often perceived as a threatening rather than advantageous. What we need is to promote beekeeping on a much larger scale – within our lifestyles.”
And this is exactly what Leni, who is based in Oroklini, is doing. Originally, her hives were sited atop the roof of her building, a practise much advocated abroad, where people are encouraged to keep bees in the city. “There are many urban beekeepers in London, fully endorsed by the local councils,” she says. “Dead space in urban areas is used to establish apiaries, bringing life back to the city and contributing to the greening of urban areas. The general public are very supportive – they understand the dilemma, and want to be part of the solution. Here in Cyprus, however, most people are unaware of the vital services bees provide us with.”
As a passionate advocate of urban beekeeping, Leni – and her beekeeping colleagues Roger White and Panayiotis Varnarva – has found her efforts to create sustainable bee populations within the area continually frustrated: restrictions based on a lack of understanding state that a hive must be further than 150m of a house. “This is an arbitrary distance to a creature that usually forages for food several kilometres from the hive, and stings only when severely threatened,” Leni adds. “I feel that urban beekeeping is very much a solution to the environmental problems we have caused – by thinking global and acting local. If more people wanted to promote urban beekeeping then local laws would change along with a shift in cultural perceptions.”
It’s a persuasive argument, especially when Leni tells me that – under the current laws – her hives have had to be relocated to a local community forest: “All the local beekeepers have had to concentrate their apiaries in very small areas, not only increasing the risk to the general public, but also negating the effectiveness of the bee population in terms of the area they are able to pollinate. It’s causes unnecessary competition for food among the apiaries, and not only is the wider landscape suffering, but the weaker bees are dying. And this situation is affecting the whole island.”
The lack of bees, it seems, is not just affecting our local flora, but our entire way of life: “It’s not just a case of no more pretty flowers,” Leni explains. “It’s an economic problem and a survival problem. By protecting our bee population we’re protecting our future. Even a small effort, such as growing rosemary – a bee-friendly plant – on your balcony would make a huge difference,” she suggests, mentioning that this is one of the many measures (which also include education in schools and informational programme on television) applied in the UK.
In fact, in much of the world, people act as if saving the bees is their last chance to save the planet. Which it may be. In 50 years from now, will your kids also be calling their spouses ‘honey’? Or, as they sit down to a barren table, will they have forgotten what the word even means?
For further information about bees and beekeeping, you can contact the PanCyprian Beekeepers Association www.cybeeas.org or visit their Facebook page. You can also email LeniPhoti on geophoti@hotmail.co.uk
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