| Honeybees - A Sting in the Tail |
 Honeybees in Britain are in decline. It is estimated that in 10 years time, if nothing is done to protect them, the honeybee will disappear from Britain by 2018. The losses are being blamed on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a disease that has seriously affected the honeybee population in America and Europe, and a resistant form of Varroa Destructor, a parasitic mite that affects bees.According to Defra, there are about”44,000 beekeepers in the UK who maintain around 274,000 colonies of honeybees” and the “economic value of crops grown commercially in the UK benefiting from bee pollination is estimated at around £120m-200m” a year.  This is a vital contribution to preserving the balance of the ecosystems at all levels.The decline of the honeybee will seriously risk the sustainability of home grown food. They pollinate over 90 of the flowering crops that we rely on for our food. The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) has voiced it’d concern over the lack of government funding for bee research. Defra currently spend £200,000 a year on research, BBKA wants to see that increased to £8m over a period of 3 years. Defra says: “the strategy seeks to address the challenges facing beekeepers given their important role as custodians of the honeybees. It sets out a plan for the future direction of work aimed at sustaining the health of the honeybee and beekeeping in England and Wales for the next decade. It recognises the important roles of the various stakeholders in implementing the strategy- Government, individual beekeepers, their associations and others, such as honey importers”. So – how do we envisage a sunny afternoon in the garden without the buzzing of the bees around our blossoms? Difficult to image – so what can we do? Not all of us are able to go as far as establishing our own little beekeeping activity. You could however take a more laid back approach to gardening, which is to leave an area of garden to run wild and go to seed.
By Yvonne Ainsworth |