The president of the
BBKA and Dr Ian Gibson
addressing the assembled
beekeepers.
King George V remained
unimpressed!
Once we had got Allison and Andy’s smokers lit we gathered around King George’s statue to be addressed by Tim and Dr Ian Gibson, MP for North Norfolk. Dr Gibson has championed our cause in parliament and, as an entomologist, has a clear understanding of the issues involved. Then we headed off to Downing Street and,once there, waited while six members of the BBKA entered through the gates to presented our petition, with its 148,000 signatures, to the Prime Minister’s representative at number 10. Then it was back to the Houses of Parliament to lobby our MPs.
The queue to get into the House was long, so we were particularly pleased when we spotted Ed Davey, MP for Kingston, talking to some beekeepers who turned out to be his wife and friends. Ed’s mother-in-law keeps 8 hives on her land in Dorset and also makes sure that Ed is aware of the issues that worry beekeepers. His wife had borrowed a friend’s bee suit so that she could attend the demonstration and had dressed their baby son as a chubby bumble bee, (see photograph). It was good to talk to him and to see that he was genuinely interested in the issue of bee research funding and the future of beekeeping in the UK. He promised that he would support any motions in parliament that related to research funding and also to keep the issue of bee health at forefront of the Liberal Democrats’ agenda.
Beekeeping? It's the bees knees
It's the stuff that sweetens our cakes, soothes our sore throats and unwittingly fills our gardens with flowers - but come this Christmas, British honey will no longer stock our supermarket shelves.
The honeybees that produce the sweet stuff are dying en masse due to parasites, bad weather and pesticides - and it's not just a problem unique to Britain. Nearly all colonies in the wild have died out, according to the British Beekeepers' Association, and without any beekeepers to care for them, honeybees could disappear entirely within only a few years.
The decline of honeybees not only threatens the crucial pollination of our crops, it has unknown consequences for the survival of plants and flowers - for a symbiotic relationship that has existed between flora needing pollination and bees who pollinate for the last 100 million years.
The good thing is that there is something we can do about it. We can become beekeepers.
Getting your buzz on
Beekeeping isn't the most glamorous of hobbies, with its white jump-suit and netted veil, but it will keep the future of honeybees, and honey, alive. And this, as Winnie the Pooh would say, is “A Very Good Thing".
Cultivating the little buzzers is essential for both our stomachs and our pockets, as about one-third of the food we eat in Britain depends on bees, which - along with the honey they make - contribute £165 million to the UK economy every year.
But there's more to it than just that, says Chris Deaves, chair of education at the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) and a beekeeper himself for the past twenty-odd years. “Bees' work is far more subtle than you think: the cotton we wear is often pollinated by bees, fodder we feed our cattle is pollinated by bees, and foods like carrots and turnips require the honeybee to make the seeds for next year.”
Honeybees work as one giant superanimal, with thousands of female worker bees living and working alongside one queen bee and a few male drones (who mate with the queen). They can travel up to five kilometres to forage for pollen and nectar, and have intricate means of communicating with one another where they've been and what they've been up to.
They're such an ancient, interesting and vital species to mankind that even the Egyptians recorded their beekeeping efforts in pharaohs' tombs. In other words, they're worth keeping around.
Bees in Urban Settings
By Kate Hodal, PA Features
Luxury food brand Fortnum And Mason has proved what a hit urban honey can be - it has four hives in Mayfair in London. Stocks have sold out and its live honeybee camera, has proved a massive internet hit. There's also a scaled-down hive on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall in London, with a blog that makes for great bee reading on getting started.
Some gardens and parks across the UK have their own hives where you could add your own, but setting up a hive at home is easier than you'd think. “All you need is around 10-20 square feet,'' says Deaves, ”and enough space to stand up the hives in stacks. You can keep them in your garden, on the roof, on an allotment, or even on wasteland on the side of a railway.'
£100,000 Committed to Bee Health Research Campaign
The major stakeholders in the UK beekeeping industry (BBKA, BFA, NFU and Rowse Honey Ltd) have held crisis talks on the declining bee population. Rowse Honey Ltd has today confirmed its commitment to invest £100,000 in honey bee health research over the next three years.
Discussion ranged across a number of issues. The group has united in the view that
- Pests and diseases are the key priority
- There is an urgent need to fill gaps in our knowledge and find solutions to the problem
- The importance of Defra prioritising research funding for disease control to support of the sector’s / industry’s own action and initiatives
The group strongly endorsed the campaign of the BBKA for increased Defra funding for bee health research. The BBKA and BFA have already committed funds to support research into bee health. The NFU expressed its concern regarding the serious impact on the environment and agricultural output if the honey bee population continues to decline. Rowse Honey is greatly concerned by the shortage of British honey, which will run out in the supermarkets by Christmas.
The group has agreed to meet regularly in the months ahead to campaign, monitor and act in concert in the face of critical declines in the bee population. It calls on Defra to reconsider its position with urgency, and agree to fund the necessary research.
Issued on behalf of:
5 September 2008
Two New Bee Books
The Buzz about Bees
Publisher's description:
With spectacularly beautiful colour photographs and an easy understandable text The Buzz about Bees tells the story of honeybees in a new perspective.
Based on the latest data, notably from his own research group, Jürgen Tautz provides a wonderful insight into the realms of bees. The entire range of astonishing bee activities is described. Remarkable action photographs never shown before present bees busy with cell cleaning, caring for the brood, serving in the queen's court, visiting flowers, receiving nectar, producing honey, comb building, entrance guarding, heating and cooling. Spotlights include bees grooming, swarming, fighting, telephoning, sleeping and communicating by high-toned beeping, scents and dances.
Keeping Bees
This guide is packed with everything a new beekeeper needs to know. It provides step-by-step instructions on handling and checking your bees and tips and advice on keeping them healthy and productive. You buy this book from Octopus Books at a special 20% discount. Just select the book, proceed to checkout and then put in the discount code “buzz” to receive your money off.
Thanks to all of you who have sent in articles for inclusion in our newsletter. The following articles were gleaned from the worldwide press by George McCrone.
The Globe and Mail, Toronto, July 21 2008
A deliciously fascinating obsessive - an interview with Dr Steve Buchmann, scientist and bee enthusiast.
Dr Buchmann, an entomologist from the University of Arizona has recently been engaged with other scientists on a study of Colony Collapse Disorder for the USA Government. They were employed on the US National Academy of Sciences panel on an 18 month study into the causes of CCD. The study also included research on other pollenators and in doing so they found evidence of the decline in all species of pollenators in the USA. This work led them on to lobby the US Senate, the House of Representatives and the House Committee on Agriculture on CCD demanding more resources for research.
American bees can be traced back to the hives bought in by the early settlers, these bees, which were not native to the Americas, bought with them problems. They superceeded several native pollenators almost immediately. Never the less from those small beginnings a large industry has grown and apis mellifera is now responsible for pollenating 100 major crops valued at $1.2 billion a year.
Pollenating crops in North America is big business and the cost to a grower of a single hive placed on his land for pollenating can be between $150 and $200.
Dr Buchmann condemns the modern method of agriculture where hundreds of acres of land is devoted to a single crop. He states that these monocultures are not good for bees, the most productive system would be smaller blocks of more diverse crops providing a variety of different pollens over a longer season.
Honey the new wonder drug (Camwest News Service, Ottawa)
Ordinary honey kills the bacteria that causes sinus infections in many cases better than antibiotics according to a new study by Dr Taial Alandejani of the University of Otawa.
The university has so far only carried out test in the laboratory but it has found that honey is effective on bacteria that forms a coating on tissue. No one is sure what is in honey that kills this bacterial coating, but something does. Their test have also shown that honey is effective in treating the super bug MRSA.
The next step in the study is to do testing on animals and once these have been found to be successful they will then proceed with tests on humans.
One in four colonies has died (Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2008)
More than one in four honeybee colonies did not survive the winter, figures show, as fears grow that the deadly Colony Collapse Disorder is on the rise.
Inspectors from the National Bee unit found 25.9 per cent of colonies dead compared to 18.3 per cent last year. The British Beekeepers Association has warned the Government that the falling bee numbers were a potential economic disaster due to their vital role in pollinating crops.
Honey beats burns (Daily Telegraph, 8 October 2008)
Honey can help reduce the healing time for mild to moderate burns, according to scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. They believe that it encourages the body to get rid of old skin and grow new skin in its place and is as good as treatments that use gauze and other dressings.
And from the web...
Too much to bear
After failing to stop a bear stealing honey from his hives by playing Serbian turbo-folk music at great volume, an exasperated Serbian beekeeper took the bear to court and won. The bear didn't show up and won't be punished, but because it is a protected species the state must pay the beekeeper 2,238 Euros for damage to his hives.
