{"id":893,"date":"2017-11-28T23:49:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T23:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/?p=893"},"modified":"2018-10-16T14:09:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T14:09:18","slug":"malaise-traps-by-helen-jukes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/?p=893","title":{"rendered":"Malaise Traps – by Helen Jukes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Type\u00a0<\/span>honeybee<\/span><\/em>\u00a0into Google, and a drop-down menu appears with a list of suggested search terms. I add a \u2018<\/span>c<\/span>\u2019 and it throws up<\/span>\u00a0honeybee collection\u00a0<\/span><\/em>or\u00a0<\/span>collapse<\/span><\/em>; add a \u2018d\u2019, and it\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>declines\u00a0<\/span><\/em>or\u00a0<\/span>decorations for your home<\/em>.<\/span>\u00a0I work my way through the alphabet;\u00a0<\/span>\u2018l\u2019\u00a0<\/span>is unequivocal.\u00a0<\/span>Honeybee losses 2017,<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>2016,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>2015<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>2014.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Some days I can\u2019t tell if honeybees are coming or going. In<\/span>\u00a0a sense<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0they\u2019re everywhere\u00a0\u2013 collecting on our shelves, decorating our homes. In the supermarket this week I passed bee-themed mugs, place mats, bath towels and lunchboxes\u00a0\u2013 not to mention the honey (<\/span>I\u00a0<\/span>LOVE\u00a0<\/span>bees<\/span><\/em>, the girl at the\u00a0<\/span>checkout<\/span>\u00a0told me, when I told her I was a beekeeper. She showed me her bee earrings and a bee-shaped pendant.\u00a0<\/span>I really love them<\/span><\/em>, she said, tucking the necklace back inside her shirt collar). And yet, e<\/span>l<\/span>sewhere,\u00a0<\/span>out there<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>where the real bees live,<\/span>\u00a0we\u2019re told t<\/span>here are losses and declines and last month I heard a new word,\u00a0<\/span>insectageddon<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

That came from an article about a study in Germany<\/span>, among the first of its kind<\/span>. Between 1989\u00a0and 2016, 1,500 insect samples were collected across 63 sites\u00a0\u2013 a total haul of over 50kg, and several million flying creatures. The results are disturbing: a 76% drop in numbers<\/span>, over\u00a0<\/span>27 years<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the paper was published,\u00a0<\/span>more<\/span>\u00a0scientists have stepped forward to suggest the findings are likely to reflect a pattern occurring across Europe and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard already about losses to honeybee, butterfly and bumblebee populations; these findings dramatically extend the scale. Around one third of our global food supply is dependent upon honeybees and other pollinating species\u00a0\u2013 i<\/span>f flying insects were to disappear, not only would we lose individual species<\/span>;\u00a0<\/span>our landscapes, our ecologies, our diets<\/span>\u00a0and so even the stuff of our own bodies<\/span>, would also be\u00a0<\/span>radically<\/span>\u00a0changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>one thing t<\/span>o read headlines like these; another to absorb them.\u00a0<\/span>The words are big. They\u2019re dramatic, they\u2019re catastrophic.\u00a0<\/span>I imagine they\u2019re probably driving<\/span>\u00a0the appetite<\/span>\u00a0for honeybee mugs and bath towels \u2013 loss can make us grabby. Yet when I look out of the window,<\/span>\u00a0i<\/span>t is not catastrophe, not\u00a0<\/span>ageddon<\/span><\/em>, that I see.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, when I was living in Oxford and about to become keeper to a colony of bees, this\u00a0<\/span>was<\/span>\u00a0something I<\/span>\u2019d<\/span>\u00a0been<\/span>\u00a0struggling with. I\u2019d read about honeybee losses in the papers. It sounded bad, but it felt remot<\/span>e;<\/span>\u00a0I wondered what would happen if I stepped to one side of the newspaper headlines and got to\u00a0<\/span>know<\/span>\u00a0a colony\u00a0<\/span>firsthand<\/span>. Would I sense a slippage, a thinning?\u00a0<\/span>And would I,\u00a0<\/span>in my slim end terrace with a weedy garden out back and a<\/span>\u00a0work\/life balance tipping dangerously towards collapse<\/span>, find a way of sustaining the bees in my care \u2013 of keeping them?<\/span><\/p>\n

I bought a suit. I got a colony.\u00a0<\/span>I\u00a0<\/span>was suddenly<\/span>\u00a0more<\/span>\u00a0involved<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span>in another<\/span>\u00a0creature than I had been for\u00a0<\/span>years<\/span>. I tended them, fretted over<\/span>\u00a0them<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0I hefted pieces of hive and beekeeping equipment. It was both a love and a labour.<\/span><\/p>\n

My garden was bordered by a crumbling wall, a hedge and a high fence<\/span>; s<\/span>tanding inside it, I couldn\u2019t see very\u00a0<\/span>far<\/span>\u00a0at all. I could see the sky. I could see a warehouse roof, our neighbours\u2019 house, the tops of the trees<\/span>\u00a0lining<\/span>\u00a0the allotments. I could hear the traffic on the road outside, and the man who shouted as he walked. I wasn\u2019t mindful\u00a0<\/span>of\u00a0<\/span>much of this; I was busy focusing on the hive. I had to\u00a0<\/span>become<\/span>\u00a0very attentive to what was happening inside it; to watch for slight\u00a0<\/span>shifts<\/span>\u00a0in the activity of the colony that might signal disease or pests or a drop in available forage. I wanted to get to know their rhythms, understand their processes<\/span>\u00a0(these were different, I realised, on different days\u00a0\u2013 a colony is as changeable as the weather).<\/span><\/p>\n

U<\/span>p<\/span>\u00a0close like this,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I learned\u00a0<\/span>a little about the landscape. A little about how bees make sense of the world, how they perceive it.\u00a0<\/span>And, b<\/span>y watching their journeys,\u00a0<\/span>by\u00a0<\/span>looking for<\/span>what they were bringing back,\u00a0<\/span>I learned something about what they were\u00a0<\/span>finding<\/span>\u00a0out there, b<\/span>eyond the fence;\u00a0<\/span>a<\/span>bout what their world was composed of. Honeybees collect pollen for feeding young and nectar for making honey; they temporarily ingest the nectar when they carry it back to the hive, and stick the\u00a0<\/span>pollen to their knees. A few months in, a friend showed me how to tell the source of these pollen nubs by their colour,\u00a0<\/span>and so make a fairly reasoned guess as to where the bees had flown. Deep yellow might be dogwood<\/span>; soft green was probably meadowsweet.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I felt like a detective, sifting for clues. Except that, for the most part, the clues were in a language I didn\u2019t speak.<\/span><\/p>\n

A honeybee colony is like nothing else. It froths and boils and quivers and shakes; it\u00a0<\/span>murmur<\/span>s<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>thrums and whines. Lifting the lid of a hive and taking a look inside can be a disorienting experience\u00a0\u2013 the bees are so foreign, so far from your familiar, they can make you feel<\/span>\u00a0completely\u00a0<\/span>lost; they can also turn you around,\u00a0<\/span>and inside out<\/span>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0t<\/span>hey can\u00a0<\/span>rearrange how you see. They rearranged and reorientated me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing this\u00a0<\/span>on a\u00a0<\/span>wooden stool, in the window of a small\u00a0<\/span>cafe<\/span>. They have baklava and free wifi. I can look out and see a road and a row of houses; I can look out and see<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>the silvery rim of a stand of beeches<\/span>, a\u00a0<\/span>heap<\/span>\u00a0of ivy hanging over a wooden fence, two kids in jeans with mud on their knees kicking a punctured football at a w<\/span>all<\/span>. For the last half hour, I haven\u2019t actually looked out of this window at\u00a0<\/span>all;<\/span>\u00a0I\u2019ve been reading about that German study, the one that prompted calls of an insectageddon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today I am interested not so much in the findings, but the method. I\u00a0<\/span>have been learning<\/span>(as the football bounced off the window of a passing car, and the car stopped, and the boys made a run for it,) a<\/span>bout<\/span>\u00a0malaise traps. A malaise trap is like a tent on stilts, pitched at one end and made of netting. Inside the pitched roof there\u2019s a funnel leading to a collecting cylinder with a quantity of ethanol inside, a killing agent. The other end of the tent is wide open;\u00a0<\/span>when\u00a0<\/span>insects fly in,<\/span>\u00a0they<\/span>\u00a0head up through the funnel and get trapped in the collecting cylinder. The basic design was invented in 1934 by\u00a0<\/span>Ren\u00e9 Malaise, hence the name. It was the sole means of sampling in the\u00a0<\/span>German study.<\/span><\/p>\n

O<\/span>ver the past 27 years, b<\/span>etween the months of March\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0October, malaise traps were placed\u00a0<\/span>in<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>63\u00a0<\/span>nature reserves<\/span>\u00a0across west Germany<\/span>. The cylinders were emptied and their contents weighed every few days. The work was done not by scientists but amateur entomologists, who visited and monitored the traps and made detailed recordings of the weather. They had strict instructions. The samples were weighed (with minute accur<\/span>acy, since the creatures were featherlight); the weights later combined and compared. Leavin<\/span>g a trap open for a prolonged period<\/span>\u00a0can be harmful to local insect populations, so those used in the study tended to be moved from one year to the next, and for this reason the pattern that emerges reflects not the individual stories of specific sites, but<\/span>\u00a0something more like an accretion; a collecting up and laying out through time of\u00a0<\/span>umpteen<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>temporary<\/span>and scrupulously recorded\u00a0<\/span>views.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder about those amateur entomologists who emptied the collecting cylinders, who tramped down to the tents each week. Did they have a sense, as they\u00a0<\/span>tipped the alcohol-soaked specimens onto the weighing scales, of the extent of the pattern unfolding? Did they sense disaster?\u00a0<\/span>Or was the change was too small, too slight to notice week-to-week?<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature reserves exist with the sole purpose of\u00a0<\/span>preserving ecosystem functions and biodiversity<\/span><\/em>, so to find such a sharp decline in resident species<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>is alarming. The researchers studied the findings; they factored in changes to land use and the weather. Neither could account for the declines, which\u00a0<\/span>occurred<\/span>\u00a0throughout the growing season, and irrespective of habitat type.\u00a0<\/span>Large scale factors must be involved<\/em><\/span>, they reasoned\u00a0\u2013 but such factors\u00a0<\/span>l<\/span>ie<\/span>\u00a0beyond the scope of their investigation<\/span>s<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

A nature reserve is a protected space but it is also a form of island, and recording only the environmental changes\u00a0<\/span>inside<\/span><\/em>\u00a0the parks will never give a complete picture because islands don\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>exist in isolation<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>Almost every reserve\u00a0<\/span>included in the study<\/span>\u00a0was surrounded by agricultural land, which over the last half century has undergone a process of rapid intensification.\u00a0<\/span>Farmland has very little to offer for any wild creature<\/span><\/em>, Professor\u00a0<\/span>Dave Goulson, one of the researchers, is quoted as saying. With the loss of field margins, increased pesticide use and year-round tillage,\u00a0<\/span>vast tracts of land [are now] inhospitable to most forms of life.<\/span><\/em>\u00a0It is possible that\u00a0<\/span>insects were flying beyond the perimeter of the reserves to find their<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>foraging and nesting habitats had disappe<\/span>ared; or that chemicals present in the wider landscape were directly harming\u00a0<\/span>them.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is an urgent need to uncover the causes<\/span>\u00a0of this decline<\/span><\/em>, the researchers conclude. And so\u00a0<\/span>call upon all of us<\/span>\u00a0\u2013<\/span><\/strong>scientists<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>amateur entomologis<\/span>ts,\u00a0<\/span>beekeepers<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>supermarket cashiers, and people sitting in cafe windows\u00a0\u2013 to join in the work of uncovering. T<\/span>o come close enough\u00a0<\/span>to<\/span>\u00a0see the detail,\u00a0<\/span>to pay<\/span>\u00a0attention to small things<\/span>\u00a0with the express aim of extending our range of vision, of better reading and\u00a0<\/span>making sense of<\/span>\u00a0the whole. Such a task\u00a0<\/span>will\u00a0<\/span>involve getting lost, giving up<\/span>\u00a0some of our go-to means of understanding the world, and drawing connections in places we hadn\u2019t before.\u00a0<\/span>It will be a love and a labour<\/span>. And i<\/span>t<\/span>\u00a0can start right<\/span>\u00a0now.<\/span><\/p>\n

This essay is reproduced from the Dark Mountain Project blog<\/a> with the kind permission of the author <\/a>and the editor.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Type\u00a0honeybee\u00a0into Google, and a drop-down menu appears with a list of suggested search terms. I add a \u2018c\u2019 and it throws up\u00a0honeybee collection\u00a0or\u00a0collapse; add a \u2018d\u2019, and it\u2019s\u00a0declines\u00a0or\u00a0decorations for your home.\u00a0I work my way through the alphabet;\u00a0\u2018l\u2019\u00a0is unequivocal.\u00a0Honeybee losses 2017,\u00a02016,\u00a02015,\u00a02014. Some days I can\u2019t tell if honeybees are coming or going. In\u00a0a sense,\u00a0they\u2019re everywhere\u00a0\u2013 collecting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14","category-endangered-species-places","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7RX4u-ep","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lostspeciesday.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}