Britain's Bees Are Threatened And The Result Could Be Worse Than Foot And Mouth

A mystery plague threatens Britain's bees and the result could be worse than foot and mouth

Concern has been expressed that the already tiny budget  supporting research into one of Nature’s most useful creatures: the bee has been slashed by the government. The news is currently dominated by the bigger issues of oil prices and house prices.

A mystery plague is threatening Britain's bees, and the result could be worse than foot and mouth.

Bees matter. And not just for honey. When they are collecting nectar to make honey they spread pollen, which fertilizes many of our garden flowers and useful fruits.

Apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, broad and runner beans depend on them. They are the unpaid workers whose labor supports many an orchard or garden.

On the narrowest calculation, they help produce £165million a year of marketed products. Yet unthinking human activity is doing considerable harm. Britain’s bumblebee population has been drastically reduced.

One factor is the use of dangerous insecticides in agriculture. These break down the bees’ orientation and communication skills and impair their memory.

Bees travel many miles for nectar and use a complex language of dances to point to the location of flowers. Without their inbuilt navigation they can’t find their way back to the hive.

Honey bees are also in a battle for survival with parasites. Professional beekeepers transport their hives across country – which contributes to the spread of parasites such as varroa.

This leeching mite has virtually destroyed the wild honey bee population. It activates lethal viruses which it carries from bee to bee as it feeds on their blood.

It is like a dirty syringe spreading HIV and is probably causing more damage than foot-and-mouth disease.

But bees, unlike livestock, do not have powerful commercial interests to support them.

As a result, a vital link in the natural chain that makes these Britain what it is could vanish. Three native bumblebee species have already disappeared and seven more are at serious risk.

Britain's crops are under threat and any further decline would seriously damage the rural economy.

Clovers and vetches – which play a key role in keeping soil fertile – and some rare plants may disappear and, according to some experts, are doing so already. The result would be catastrophic for the future of farming itself.

Britain’s 44,000 beekeepers are not very commercially minded. Like the bees, they work largely for free.

Volunteers tend the hives and manage the swarms because they love their hobby.Simple common sense and national self-interest suggest that the Government should support some research into bees and their diseases.

Before recent cuts, it spent £1.25million on bee health, of which less than a fifth was for research. The Government thus spends less than one per cent, at most, of bees’ value to the economy.

Britain needs her bees and her bee industry to be healthy and needs to be able to rely on the government for funds to finance the research needed for that.

It is no laughing matter and it is tragic for it to make me think of that jest "Britain is a land of milk and honey, the cows get into parliament and the B's get all the money."

There is many a true word said in jest!
 

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