Pollinators Unknown: People’s Perception of Native Bees in an Agrarian District of West Bengal, India, and Its Implication in Conservation

Abstract

Native bees are important pollinators of cultivated and wild plants. Although much importance has been accorded them in many countries of the world, India has largely ignored the role of these important ecosystem service providers for too long. The consequence is public apathy toward these beneficial insects. This study has attempted to find out the general ''bee awareness'' of people living in agrarian societies in a socioeconomically underdeveloped Indian district through picture-based questionnaire surveys and has also attempted to determine the effectiveness of information divulgation in changing people's perception toward native bees. Opinion of the people on honeybee health in this district has also been explored. It has been found that traditional knowledge of bees is largely restricted to the honey-producing species of the genus Apis, and even though other native species are frequently encountered by the people, there is a substantial lack of awareness about their true nature and importance. However, the study suggests that through right training, this situation may favorably be altered. Multiple regression analysis of socioeconomic factors determining bee knowledge of respondents revealed that women were > 4 times better at identifying native bees than men, both with or without given information, and the higher the level of education the better people were at identifying native bees. People considered pesticides and their irregular application to be the major killers of honeybees. This study generates hope for involvement of local people in native as well as honeybee conservation and management through proper awareness campaigns and right education.

Farmers’ Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Pollination and Bees in a Maize-Producing Region of Zimbabwe: Implications for Pollinator Conservation

“…However, beyond 20 years of farming experience, the ability to identify bees declined and one possible explanation to this could be the effect of old age negatively affecting bee identification (bees are generally very small and therefore require sharp eyesight for distinguishing). In addition, conquering with our predictions, the ability to identify bees increased with the level of education also confirming findings by Misganaw et al (2017) and Bhattacharyya et al (2017). This strengthens the idea of awareness and education as a way of improving pollinator conservation.…”

“…Xylocopa species could have been recognized as a bee by the least number of farmers also because of its morphology which is very different from the honey bee which is considered to be the true bee species. This confirms findings by Bhattacharyya et al (2017) which showed that knowledge of non Apis bee species was poor in farmers as bees were associated with honey. This finding suggests that bee species with unique morphology from the honey bee species are the most affected by the misconception and may ultimately result in minimal conservation attention accorded them by farmers.…”

“…However, the honey bee, Apis mellifera is the major pollinator for approximately 52 of the dominant 115 global crops (Neumann & Carreck, 2010). The honey bee large numbers in each colony grant them an advantage over other pollinator species and therefore have served as a representative for all pollinator species, and farmers are often ignorant of other pollinator species (Bhattacharyya et al., 2017). This bias toward a single pollinator species ( Apis mellifera) is unsustainable and may hinder proper ecosystem functioning (Hanes et al., 2018; López-del-Toro et al., 2009) considering that some plant species are specialized.…”

Crop Pollination in Small-Scale Agriculture in Tanzania: Household Dependence, Awareness and Conservation

“…Pests, fertilizers, and lack of good quality seeds were reported as the main pressing problems leading to decline in agriculture production. The level of education or type of crops grown did not seem to play a role in pollination awareness as reported by other studies [61][62][63]. The few farmers aware of pollinators seemed to have acquired this information from agriculture training programs or from other farmers.…”

Socio‐psychological factors, beyond knowledge, predict people’s engagement in pollinator conservation

“…For example, a European public consultation with 67,000 responses showed that most respondents considered themselves to be well informed about pollinators, found pollinator declines alarming and felt significantly affected by pollinator declines (European Commission, 2018). Furthermore, studies show that attitudes towards pollinators are positively related to knowledge and benefit from education (Bhattacharyya et al., 2017; Penn et al., 2018; Schönfelder & Bogner, 2018; Sieg et al., 2018; Silva & Minor, 2017; Toomey & Domroese, 2013). There is some indication that this knowledge is matched by an intention to protect pollinators, for example participants in a UK study were willing to pay an average of £43/household/year (£842 million/year nationally) for a policy to protect bees (Mwebaze et al., 2018).…”