ABSTRACT

Insects are fundamental for the proper functioning of ecosystems, and bees in particular, yet their health status has been weakened by poor breeding practices as well as agrochemical and electromagnetic pollution. With the distress of the bees, their need by man is revealed, and in the mirror of the bee, we become aware of what we have lost and must regain. For this reason, this chapter advocates that we need to re-learn about bees: their intricate life, their social organisation and their role as biological indicators for the dangers facing humanity. New approaches to bee-friendly beekeeping are recommended as a universal practice for the vital contribution that bees make to our survival. The chapter suggests that as a first step, everyone can help to create a bee-friendly world through enabling natural settings with flowered pastures seeded specifically for bees. In his cycle of lectures on The Bees, Rudolf Steiner stated (1923: 5): ‘Actually, every human being should show the greatest interest in this subject, because, much more than you can imagine, our lives depend upon beekeeping’. So, what we now consider to be the need of bees is increasingly being understood as our need, because a world in which bees can no longer live is a world that lacks what is essential for man.