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SAVE HST! the For a limited time 79 Main Street South, Georgetown 905-877-3388 ~ LIVE ENTERTAINMENT ~ LUNCH BUFFET SERVED THURSDAY & FRIDAY 11:30 am to 2:00 pm $11.50 HST INCLUDED Private Catering Available - Roast Beef - Roast Ham - Fish & Chips - Assorted Salads - Dessert Table - Tea & Coffee Roast Beef Featuring: Fri. & Sat. 9:30 pm - close Skip Tracer Asphalt shingle reroofing WSIB coverage Fully licenced & insured 10 year labour warranty Free estimates Fast, economical, reliable service Local Georgetown business since 2008 FAMILY OWNED AND OPERATED BUSINESS 112 John St., Georgetown, ON L7G 4T5 416-579-5293416-579-5293 $10000OFF the price of a new roofMention this ad and receive While much of the media attention on bees lately has focused on honeybees, Con- servation Halton natural heritage ecologist Brenda Van Ryswyk says we're going to have to rely on both honeybees and wild bees for crops in the future. "The wild bees have been providing huge pollinator benefits and we just haven't real- ized it until they've started to decline. All of a sudden we wonder why we didn't have any strawberries this year. Well it's because you killed all of your bees that were pollinating it," said Van Ryswyk. While the exact number of native bees in Halton is unknown, she estimates there's at least a "couple hundred" different species in the Region and about 4,000 across North Amer- ica. About 90 per cent of wild plants are pollinated by bees in some way. "If we lost the wild bees, we would lose all of our flowering plants. If we lost all of our wild pollinators, we would really have a very different landscape," said Van Ryswyk. "They're much more efficient than the European honeybee." Van Ryswyk said wild bees such as bumblebees are important pollinators and many crops, including tomatoes and strawberries, wouldn't exist without them. But bumblebees are under a lot of pres- sure from different sources and are in de- cline "for the same reason as honeybees." "Bumblebees are being attacked by diseases right now because a lot of green- houses bring in cultivated bumblebees from other areas. Sometimes the domes- ticated bumblebees will have parasites and the parasites have been found to migrate to the wild populations," said Van Ryswyk. Bumblebees don't create their own nests-- they find an abandoned mouse hole and nestle inside it. However, if there's no habitat for the mice, there's no habitat for the bumblebees, Van Ryswyk explained. "In previous farming practices, they used to have a lot of hedgerows with a lot of wildflowers and shrubs that grew. That area was prime habitat for bumblebees and wild bees to nest in," said Van Ryswyk. "A lot of farms these days feel it's more ef- ficient to clear those away and have more of a factory farm." The rusty-patched bumblebee is in dan- ger, for example, and is a newly listed en- dangered species in Canada and is the first federally listed bee in North America, ac- cording to Wildlife Preservation Canada. In Canada, only three in- dividuals have been located in the past 10 years with the only current known popula- tion residing at Pinery Pro- vincial Park. "From the scientific com- munity there's been a lot of concern about (wild bees) as well. When a lot of people think of bees, they think of the honeybees, (but) there are about 900 other species of bees in Ontario alone. They're part of our ecosys- tem," said Paul Kozak, an apiary specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agri- culture and Food and the Ministry of Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). While beekeepers play a big role in sus- taining honeybee populations, there are certain things a homeowner can do to help the wild bees, Van Ryswyk said. For example, people can plant native flowers that provide nectar and pollen and leave behind nesting areas using old branches and twigs on their properties. "Make sure that any flowers you do use still have pollen and nectar because there are actually some cultivars that have been created and are marketed as allergy-friend- ly, but there are no good for bees," she said. Homeowners can also put up bee bun- dles in their backyards for nesting or just leave a section of the garden with old stems lying around. To lose both the honeybees and native bees could have a "tremendous effect," Van Ryswyk explained, adding 90 per cent of wild plants would be lost as well as all crops that require pollination. "As a species, we would have to rely on grains to survive. It would be really hard for us to survive on only those resources. I'm not sure we could sustain ourselves that way." Pictured is a possible digger bee, which belongs to the Ge- nus Anthophora, says Brenda Van Ryswyk of Conservation Halton. Conservation Halton photo By NATHAN HOWES Special to the IFP Bee decline a cause for concern