Jam, Jerusalem and SOS for Honey Bees
By Ruth D’Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener The Wildlife Gardener went to a Women’s Institute meeting the other night, for a talk by the delightful Audrey Gill from the Surrey Beekeeper’s Association. The WI is so concerned about the decline in the honeybee population that the ONLY Resolution for discussion at the National Federation of Women’s Institutes’ AGM at the Royal Albert Hall on June 3rd is whether to urge HM Government to increase funding for research into bee health. If a majority vote yes to the Resolution, The NFWI will lobby for that funding increase.
With all the financial tribulations of the government, why should it dig deeper to fund research into insects? Here’s why:
- Bees contribute
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Are bees protected? If not, why not?
The Ranger responds: do you mean domestic honeybees? If so, no. And why not? Because there are hardly any instances of people deliberately harming bees. In fact none I’ve heard of recently. Legal protection won’t protect against disease or poor husbandry.
Recession = oh well, swine flu = ho hum, the possible death of all our honey bees = truly terrifying.
Is it really necessary to spend so much money on research to tell us what we already know?
i.e. that we need to raise bees organically.
natural beekeeping
organic bees survive colony collapse
organic beekeeping
The ancient British Black Bee may come to the rescue. It seems that again we have put all our eggs in one basket by ignoring natural diversity and relying on a very limited gene pool in order to maximise commercial gain.
Incidentaly we have the only professor of apiculture in the country here at Sussex University
Well, you of all people would know a good headline, pajamadeen. I guess it just needs the right spin and news day and we could shake up a lot of people re the bee crisis. With my kids, I tell them that the critter they’re scared of is far more scared of them. Unless they sit on it, of course.
Great post, I love the “for the sake of our knees save the bees”. Trying to work out how I can fit that into our interpretation at the Isle of Wight Festival…
Re your Anorak fact: “The queen bee mates up to 17 times in the first 4 days of her life, and then never again. The queen collects the sperm from all her matings and stores it in a’spermotheca’, so she can eke out the sperm throughout her egg-laying days.”
See, bees are not stupid! Isn’t it a pity that we can’t do the same? Think of all the heartache we’d save ourselves. 😉
You wrote: “In 10 years we may no longer have honeybees. That would mean slow death from starvation on a bleak landscape. But does that make a good headline?”
Well, I think it makes an excellent headline!
We have big, fat bees here. Hubby hates them; they seem to love him and follow him around. I’ve told him no, you love bees; bees are good. I take great pains to plant lots of things that bees love: lavender, French thyme, coneflowers, sunflowers, Russian sage, you name it, it’s here if it will fit in the yard.
Hubby is terrified of being stung by bees. I keep trying to explain in my old hippie way that if you’re not threatening the bees, they won’t sting. I haven’t been stung since I was a child, when I inadvertently stepped on bees. Can’t really say as I blame them for stinging me – after all, I was crushing them!