South West Greens’ hive of industry supports bee health research
Published: 11 May 2008
Cllr Ricky Knight, South West Green Party lead candidate for the 2009 European elections, met today with Tim Potter, a beekeeper near West Down in North Devon, to discuss the urgent threat to the UK’s bee colonies from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and the Varroa mite.
Last week an Early Day Motion was tabled requesting £8m of government funding into vital bee health research. Currently only £1.35m per annum is available to the National Bee Unit (part of Defra) to fund all its statutory activities as well as research.
'It is reckoned that honey bees contribute £165m annually to the agricultural economy', said Cllr Knight, 'as well as their vital role in pollination for food crops and wild flowers. If the bee population decreases then both food crops and other flora will be hit hard if this crucial function disappears. The results could be disastrous, as delicate ecosystems would become unbalanced.'
The Varroa mite is an Asian parasite first discovered in Devon in the early 1990s and is now affecting European bees. It is a mite which can lead to CCD, which causes the bees to leave the hive and die out. The few bees left behind, when tested by scientists, have been found to carry virtually every known bee virus as well as several fungal infections. CCD has been reported in Germany, Italy and France, and its entry into the UK is most likely inevitable.
'We take so much for granted with the food chain because we are so far removed from processes that have evolved over so many centuries', said Ricky. 'Bees are like a litmus test that can warn us that something is wrong. There is definitely something wrong with the bee population and, judging from what is happening elsewhere in the world, unless investment into research is done quickly and effectively, we are going to allow incalculable damage to be done to a magical and natural process that we rely upon absolutely for so much of our food production.'
Beekeeper Tim Potter, who produces Three Hares Honey, says: 'On top of bad weather such as last year’s wet summer, which seriously affected my honey yield, and compounded by fears of colony collapse, one of my sites was afflicted by European Foul Brood, which is the bee equivalent of BSE. This site is still isolated. On top of that, the expectations and restrictions placed upon beekeepers and their more or less volunteer inspectors are increasingly unrealistic and unsustainable. We are desperately looking for a change of political heart with regard the paltry allocations given to us at the moment.'
Beekeeper Tim also says ‘I had a poor season last year due to the appalling wet summer. My bees could not collect nectar and new queens could not fly out to mate. One of my colonies on Exmoor was afflicted by European Foul Brood (EFB) and so all the hives in that apiary were under movement restrictions. Even now, I cannot move some of my hives to the early summer flowers. I am therefore losing out on some honey production. The Local Bee Inspector has helped me with the confirmation and treatment of the disease, for which I am grateful. However, I feel the current demands on Bee Inspectors are unrealistic. I seriously doubt they have enough resources to monitor sufficient numbers of the country’s bees. If the source of a disease cannot be discovered it will continue to be a cause of infection.
‘Diseases such as EFB have always been with us. Varroa arrived in the 1990s and, by spreading viruses, is impacting on the viability of beekeeping as a business. CCD will be with us in the UK soon if it is not already here. There are other diseases that are likely arrive in the next few years including another species of mite that is likely to be worse than varroa and the Small Hive Beetle whose larvae simply eat through everything in the hive. In the face of these issues our current approach to bee disease research and monitoring is not sustainable. Beekeepers are desperately looking for a change of political heart with regard to the paltry allocations given to beekeeping at the moment.
‘Politicians and the public need to realise that because of the varroa mite, to all intents and purposes, there are no wild populations of honeybees in the UK other than recently escaped swarms from beekeepers. If a colony of bees is not under the care of a beekeeper it will soon succumb to the mite and die out. It is beekeepers who maintain honeybees within the local ecosystem. Without the support of a generously funded bee disease research and monitoring programme to combat both current and future diseases, both amateur and professional beekeepers will simply stop keeping bees.
‘That means no more pollinating of wild flowers in the British countryside that we all hold so dear. No more affordable local honey. No more increased yields from pollination of our agricultural food crops at a time when the rising price of food is such a public concern. Quite simply, if Britain does not fund bee disease research now, we will all have to pay for the consequences many times over in the price of our weekly food shop.’
South West Greens are aiming to assist in a number of ways: 'We are urging our members to get everyone they know to sign this online petition to help obtain the necessary funding into bee health', said Cllr Knight. 'You can find it online at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/.'
Stroud Green Party will be hosting a public meeting with expert speakers from the bee world. Philip Booth, a Stroud District Councillor, said 'interest has been very strong locally. I am in contact with a bee specialist in Australia who is offering to come and speak about how he is preventing Colony Collapse Disorder in his hives.'
The number of colonies across Gloucestershire has been declining steadily for more than a decade, but last year dropped from 25 to 30 per cent. There are 275 registered beekeepers in Gloucestershire. In 1994 there were about 5,000 colonies in the county. Last year the figure was between 1,500 to 2,000.
Cllr Knight maintains that colony collapse threatens the collapse of the whole process of honey production and with it the delicate eco-balance of pollination.
'Defra needs to take a leaf out of the EU’s book and start investing more effectively into research into the health of bee colonies and further, to consider subsidies for a cottage industry which provides such vital yet overlooked support for agriculture.'
Photograph shows beekeeper Tim Potter (left) and lead Euro candidate Cllr Ricky Knight (right)
