The current crisis for honey bees threatens the broader health of our environment.

Honey bees are needed for the polination of plant species, and the large industry that keeps bees and intensively farms them and transports them to farms to polinate crops has seen a catastrophic decline in their bee populations recently.

Although one reason given is the veroa mite attacking the bees, among other reasons, one suggestion is the stress the bees are subject to because of the transport and lack of biodiversity they are exposed to.

To address at least this concern, I would suggest employing a similar technique that other forms of farming use, crop rotation.

A bee keeper has a population of bees that instead of the whole lot being shipped all over the place constantly, they are divided into sub-populations of three or four, and over the course of three or four years when the season begins, one sub-population is used each year, leaving the other two or three colonies the two or three years as "fallow" bees, a couple of years of settled growth in a location where they are free to interact in a species rich environment. 
And of course the next year the next colony/sub-population is used.


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This idea came to me too late to be included in the ideas for parks challenge, but never mind...

I remembered this idea I posted about free bees able to pollinate the surrounding environment and help maintain bio-diversity in a manner that did not stress them and have a detremental effect on their populations, and it occured to me that parks are the ideal places for just this kind of centre of pollination, as these places are usually centrally located in towns and cities, from which bees can go about their business and contribute to the health of such urban population centres.

So I propose that every park should have a managed system of hives and collonies of bees for non-industrial (honey etc.) purposes, which will enrich the health of the park itself and all gardens and green spaces around the city and so improve the human environment too.