Author: Luigi Guarino

Another post from Danny. Maybe we should be giving him frequent flier miles. Anyway, it’s on a subject we’ve tackled before, but not, I think, from a British perspective.

Having just been interviewed for a job in Limerick, and with one panel member expressing an interest in biodiversity of ants and bees, I thought it might be interesting to post on this subject. It is also pouring with rain and blowing a gale so I have little better to do as I sit around Limerick railway station awaiting the next train to Dublin. Honey bees ‘wiped out in 10 years’, in yesterday’s Observer reports the threat posed to British bees by devastating diseases, especially the real danger that colony collapse disease will be introduced to the country.

It is estimated that bees contribute £165m a year to the economy through the pollination of fruit trees and other crops and about £12m through the sale of British honey. This is certainly an undervaluation when the other benefits of bees are considered. ‘If nothing is done about it, the honey bee population could be wiped out in 10 years,’ the Farming Minister, Lord Rooker, has admitted in the House of Lords. But, despite this importance of bees to the nation’s economy, the government has said it has no cash left to fund a research project to investigate the ‘killer’ diseases. The amount needed? The British Beekeeping Association is asking for a £8m research project that would run for five years. At a conservative estimate this is about 1% of the revenue that bees generate over the same period!

The article is accompanied by a video describing how the world’s largest pollination event in California’s almond orchards is under threat. The video also describes the interesting occupation of honeybee broker.