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British bee farm buzz gets muted
Where in the United States, fruit farmers pay to have bees trucked thousands of miles to pollinate their crops and in parts of China, humans with feather dusters have taken on the task, in Britain most bees go nature's way.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:23 November 28, 2008
London: Where in the United States, fruit farmers pay to have bees trucked thousands of miles to pollinate their crops and in parts of China, humans with feather dusters have taken on the task, in Britain most bees go nature's way.
Britons have a deep nostalgia for home-grown honey and its associations with an ordered rural lifestyle. But here, too, the honey bee population is dwindling, and with winter under way faces a tough fight for survival.
Besides warnings the country will run out of English honey by Christmas, there is a threat to growers of fruits such as apples and pears.
A wet summer on top of changed sowings and increasingly intensive agriculture have limited opportunities to forage for nectar, risking starvation for bees. Most colonies are also infested with a dangerous parasitic mite.
"We are extremely aware of the enormous threat there is to honey bees and the huge reduction in population," said Adrian Barlow, chief executive of trade group English Apples and Pears. "It is something we are very concerned about."
Foraging trips
To collect a pound of honey, a bee might have to fly a distance equivalent to twice around the world. This is likely to involve 10,000 flower visits or perhaps 500 foraging trips, according to the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA).
Honey bees pollinate about 90 per cent of apples in Britain and also have an important role for many other crops including runner beans, pears and raspberries.
Britain has about 250,000 hives, about 80 per cent of them looked after by small-scale beekeepers who sell most of their honey to friends, colleagues and at farm shops.
The other 20 per cent are kept by larger bee farmers who produce honey on a more commercial scale.
Richard Steel in the Cambridgeshire countryside has been keeping bees for 27 years. He had about three dozen colonies but lost about two thirds of them, blaming heavy rains during the spring/summer mating season as a key factor.
"What was happening ... with a lot of the colonies that failed was that the queens were running out of sperm and not being able to lay fertile eggs," he said by telephone.
The United States, France, Greece and many other countries have also suffered heavy losses in the bee population and researchers are still searching for answers.
British beekeepers have been demanding the annual state budget for bee health research be raised to £1.6 million ($8.7 million) from £200,000 now. Hundreds of them delivered a petition to the prime minister in London earlier this month calling for more research spending.
"The increased funding we are asking for is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of pounds the government has found for bank bailouts," BBKA President Tim Lovett said, referring to moves prompted by the global financial crisis.
The term Colony Collapse Disorder was first used in North America in 2006, initially applied to a sharp rise in colony losses in that region. But European beekeepers have also seen similar phenomena.
"Collapse is a jargonistic term," said Francis Ratnieks, professor of apiculture at the University of Sussex in southern England. "The hive doesn't actually collapse. The bees just go away. It is basically hives dying in the winter."
Long-term changes in agriculture have not helped the honey bee. A jump in wheat prices last year led to a 13 per cent rise in plantings in Britain. Wheat does not provide any nectar.
Magnet
Sowings of oilseed rape - a bees' favourite which does flower - fell by 12 per cent for this year's harvest, according to figures issued by Britain's farm ministry.
"Oilseed rape is a magnet for honey bees," said Stuart Bailey, chairman of leading British brand Rowse Honey which has committed £100,000 to support research into bee health at the University of Sussex.
Sussex University's Ratnieks also pointed out that agriculture has become more intensive: "In the old days a field of wheat would have more weeds in it, but farmers are not in the business of growing weeds."
Wet summers have also made it hard for bees to store up enough food to survive the long winter from end-October to mid-March when flowers are scarce.
The threat to home-grown honey only represents a small opportunity for other producers. The British eat about 30,000 tonnes of honey a year of which about 3,000 tonnes is home produced. The biggest source of imports is Argentina and other important suppliers include Mexico, Hungary and India.
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