Right around the world there we are currently experiencing a collapse in the numbers of bees. The decline of bee populations has been noticed in Europe and North America since the 1960s, but has really accelerated in the last twenty years. Of course most pollinator species are wild and frankly we do not have data on their populations, but for managed bee colonies, figures across Europe show an approximate 50% drop in honey bee numbers since about 1990.
Other studies provide corroborating evidence. For instance in the UK there has been a 70% drop in the numbers of wild flowers requiring animal pollination over the same period, and butterfly numbers are similarly affected. These statistics are sad in themselves but it’s bees that really matter.
The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) warns that on current trends, bees could be extinct in Britain within a decade. This is not only bad news for honey enthusiasts, but it poses a serious potential threat to us all. Many people today like to promote the idea that humans have escaped from nature, that we have the technological nouse to control our environment. The truth is we are completely dependent on nature and the humble bee is a case in point.
Almost one third of total farm output depends on animal pollination, mainly by bees. The list of plants affected includes: nuts; nearly all fruit; brassicas such as cabbage, broccoli and sprouts; tomatoes; peppers, chilies and other spices; cucumbers; melons; marrows; courgettes; aubergines; avocados; coconuts; tea and coffee. Collectively these crops account for roughly 35% of all calories consumed globally.
Bee keepers have long suspected that agricultural (and horticultural) pesticides were to blame for the mysterious disappearance of bees from hives in a phenomenon labeled Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). However the chemical companies which produce the pesticides naturally refuted this and preferred to look for evidence of viruses or parasites, which would presumably need yet more pharmacological solutions.
Bees do have a variety of problems to contend with. Disease does play its part, and man made problems such as industrial pollution and habitat loss are significant factors too. But for some years now there has been clear evidence indicating that the use of systemic pesticides, known collectively as neonicotinoids could be having a devastating impact on bee populations.
Development of these products only began in the late eighties. Today many seeds are pretreated with neonicotinoids. They are designed to travel through the plant’s sap and protect the leaves, stems and shoots against harmful insects that munch upon them. However, they also find their way in to the flowers, pollen and nectar.
Manufacturers of products such as Gaucho, Cruiser, Poncho, Merit and Flagship have conducted laboratory trials which demonstrate that the doses absorbed by bees through nectar are sub-lethal, but several other recent studies have shown that these chemicals affect the pollinators in unsuspected ways. They specifically target the insects’ central nervous systems causing their internal navigation systems and memories to malfunction. French beekeepers describe this as ’mad bee disease’. The bees simply go out to forage and forget how to get back to the hive, which eventually dies of starvation. These chemicals also weaken the animals’ immune system leaving them vulnerable to lethal fungal infections. In both cases it is difficult to prove such deaths are caused by pesticides, but they are.
Last year, the European Commission asked The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to look at the impact of three such neonicotinoids: Imidacloprid, Clothianidin and Thiamethoxam, on bees, and on 16th January this year EFSA published their findings. The report found unacceptably high risks to honey bees from pollen, nectar and dust particles and where bees were exposed to sap through guttation (many plants naturally express sap through their leaves), the effect was ’acute ’.
Accordingly the EU Commissioner for Health & Consumer Policy, Tonio Borg, asked for a two year ban on the use of these three neonicotinoids across all member states. A YouGov poll conducted for the online campaigning organization Avaaz found that over 70% of the UK public supported such a ban and Avaaz amassed over 2.5 million signatures from across Europe.
Despite a wealth of scientific data supporting the ban, the proposal was defeated on March 15th in The Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health made up of representatives from Member States within the European Union. Thirteen countries supported the ban including: France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Poland. Nine opposed, led by Romania and Bulgaria, and five, including the UK and Germany abstained.
The UK Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson ,says there was insufficient evidence. His own department, DEFRA, has commissioned separate research in to the issue and will now wait for the results. Privately it is widely believed that the big pharma manufacturers, especially Bayer and Syngenta, who dominate this market, lobbied hard to avoid the ban.
So far so bad, but there is a glimmer of hope for the bees. Since there was no overall majority in the European vote, it falls to the Commission itself to decide what to do next. If the nations do not agree a compromise in the coming weeks, the Commissioner can implement the policy for them. Mr Borg is currently considering what his next steps should be.
This would be a good time to make your opinion heard either by writing to the Commissioner directly, or by lobbying your MEP. Alternatively, if you live in the UK you can sign the attached ePetition requiring the government to allow a Parliamentary debate on the subject. The bees need all the help they can get!
Lord Deben, better known perhaps as John Selwyn Gummer, was the Conservative farms minister in the nineties who famously fed beef burgers to his daughter to calm public nerves over BSE. He is clearly not a man averse to taking the odd risk. Yet he believes "If ever there were an issue where the precautionary principle ought to guide our actions, it is in the use of neonicotinoids. Bees are too important to our crops to continue to take this risk.” I couldn’t put it better myself
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