The heatwaves putting bees – and a generations-old industry – at risk
Since she was a young child, eleven-year-old Markela in Nea Makri, Greece has been a beekeeper. Every week or so, she accompanies her grandfather, Markos Sakarikos, to check on the family's hives – looking for the queen bee, making sure the bees have enough food, and treating them if they show symptoms of disease. She represents the family's fifth generation of beekeepers, with the profession starting with her great-great-grandfather more than a century ago.
But the climate crisis means Markela may not be able to carry on the family tradition.
When his own grandparents were beekeepers, Markos says, "The honey they were producing was that much, I cannot even describe it."
But the climate has changed – and the health of the bees, and amount of honey, with it. "The bees have been decimated," Markos says.
Wildfires have burned the vegetation that bees, and the rest of the ecosystem, depend on. Where there haven't been wildfires, there have been droughts.
"The whole place has dried up, and there are no flowers," Markos says. "If [the bees] don't find flowers, if there is no blossoming stage, there is no pollen and no honey."
Bees are more than honey producers. They're both integral to ecosystems, and some of the first indicators of environmental health. In Greece, they sound the alarm about crippling heatwaves, droughts and forest fires.
The bees' poor health worries Markela and her family. But she doesn't need to see the bee population weakening to know how much the climate crisis is impacting her area. "Almost every day, I see in the news about children having to flee their homes due to wildfires, and people dying in these fires," she says. "I am afraid."
Without coordinated, concrete actions to limit CO2 emissions, the wildfires, heatwaves and droughts that Greece are seeing will get far worse. So will the health and wellbeing of the bees – and of children like Markela. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from wildfire smoke is up to 10 times more harmful to children's respiratory health than PM2.5 from other sources, particularly for children from birth to age five. And its impact is worsened when it is hot outside: Not only are children more likely to develop asthma when exposed to extreme heat, but they are more likely to have asthma attacks when exposed to wildfire smoke.
Governments also need to institute holistic approaches to mitigate such harm, including by placing a strong primary health care response at the centre of all climate change preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery efforts.
But the most important thing, say Markela and Markos, is to cut emissions to limit global warming to begin with.
"If the bees go extinct, that will be the end of the world," Markos says. "This is not my opinion – but the opinion of experts."
