The British bee is still in decline, but home hives may not be the answer.
THE DILEMMA I'm terrified by the news that the honey bee is in decline. I live in a town and have limited space, but should I set up a hive to help the bees?
The quote (often attributed to Einstein) "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live" is no doubt ringing in your ears. Given that experts suggest that one-third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, this is not hyperbole. Wipe out bee pollination and we lose about 35% of our calories, for starters.
In America, bee colony populations are thought to have halved through Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which the worker bees from a hive suddenly disappear. Campaigners seem convinced that CCD has been triggered by the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which are thought to impair bees' ability to forage. Retailer and activist Sam Roddick and nealsyardremedies.com have launched a campaign and petition to ban neonics under the Bee Lovely banner.
Four years ago British beekeepers were losing one in three hives. This rate has slowed, but there's no cause for celebration: the annual survey measuring losses over winter puts this year's bee losses at 13.6%. The British bee decline is often attributed to a resistant parasitic mite, the varroa, that spreads viruses among bee colonies. But researchers, such as those at Newcastle University, think the principal threat is the intensification of agricultural environments.
So it's tempting to don a beekeeping suit and offer a live/work unit to these hard-working insects. However, when the London mayoral office launched Capital Bee, aka Boris's bees, to promote inner-city beekeeping, beekeepers threw up their smokers in horror. Inexperienced urban beekeeping wouldn't help, they said.
Actually Capital Bee has promoted 50 community hives and new London beekeepers are in training, but there is a lesson here. We would have more answers to CCD and other causes of downturns in bee populations if research hadn't been so woefully underfunded. That's why I like the British beekeepers association's AdoptaBeehive.co.uk programme, where you can support research and experienced beekeeping.
So don't set up a hive. If you have a garden, your responsibility lies in making it bee friendly. Set your lawn mower on a higher setting so it won't cut down clover (bees love clover), plant native garden flowers and wildflowers rather than imported species that offer little nectar or pollen, and leave gardens ungroomed, with bits of rotting wood and mouse nests that may be used by nesting bees.
Given that only one in six pots of honey eaten in the UK is from British bees, buying local honey in order to support local beekeepers gives you a short and sweet remedy.
Lucy Siegle's book To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? (£12.99, Fourth Estate) is out now in paperback
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/03/lucy-siegle-british-bee-hive
The quote (often attributed to Einstein) "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live" is no doubt ringing in your ears. Given that experts suggest that one-third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, this is not hyperbole. Wipe out bee pollination and we lose about 35% of our calories, for starters.
In America, bee colony populations are thought to have halved through Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which the worker bees from a hive suddenly disappear. Campaigners seem convinced that CCD has been triggered by the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which are thought to impair bees' ability to forage. Retailer and activist Sam Roddick and nealsyardremedies.com have launched a campaign and petition to ban neonics under the Bee Lovely banner.
Four years ago British beekeepers were losing one in three hives. This rate has slowed, but there's no cause for celebration: the annual survey measuring losses over winter puts this year's bee losses at 13.6%. The British bee decline is often attributed to a resistant parasitic mite, the varroa, that spreads viruses among bee colonies. But researchers, such as those at Newcastle University, think the principal threat is the intensification of agricultural environments.
So it's tempting to don a beekeeping suit and offer a live/work unit to these hard-working insects. However, when the London mayoral office launched Capital Bee, aka Boris's bees, to promote inner-city beekeeping, beekeepers threw up their smokers in horror. Inexperienced urban beekeeping wouldn't help, they said.
Actually Capital Bee has promoted 50 community hives and new London beekeepers are in training, but there is a lesson here. We would have more answers to CCD and other causes of downturns in bee populations if research hadn't been so woefully underfunded. That's why I like the British beekeepers association's AdoptaBeehive.co.uk programme, where you can support research and experienced beekeeping.
So don't set up a hive. If you have a garden, your responsibility lies in making it bee friendly. Set your lawn mower on a higher setting so it won't cut down clover (bees love clover), plant native garden flowers and wildflowers rather than imported species that offer little nectar or pollen, and leave gardens ungroomed, with bits of rotting wood and mouse nests that may be used by nesting bees.
Given that only one in six pots of honey eaten in the UK is from British bees, buying local honey in order to support local beekeepers gives you a short and sweet remedy.
Lucy Siegle's book To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? (£12.99, Fourth Estate) is out now in paperback
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/03/lucy-siegle-british-bee-hive
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