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On the point about British Commonwealth soldiers, it is important to note the difference. We have soldiers from, for example, Fiji, which explains why the Army tends to beat the Royal Navy at rugbyit has so many Fijiansand from many other countries. They come to this country to serve in one of our regiments, in the Navy or in the Royal Air Force. However, the Brigade of Gurkhas is separate and Gurkha soldiers join that brigade; it is different. Without giving a long-winded answer, we have looked at these things in detail, and that is part of the reason that the situation is so complex. It takes time to consider all the ramifications. It is easy to be emotive about things, but as a Government we have to act responsibly on behalf of these very different cases.
To call attention to the effect of disease on the British bee population, the spread of the varroa mite and the consequences for the pollination of crops and fruit; and to move for Papers.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, the honey bee is under threat. There is no single cause, but uniquely in the insect world, we can have a direct impact on their survival since for generations we have harvested honey from these remarkable creatures and managed their welfare in hives. To a far-reaching extent, their future lies in our hands, which is why I wish to speak to the Motion standing in my name and seek assurances from the Minister regarding their welfare. I have no financial interest to declare. I am not involved with the industry, I own no hives, nor indeed do I carry the name of Lord Hives who, I understand, introduced a bee Bill in your Lordships House when this was last debated. I do not claim to be an expert, but I have grown to respect those who work with honey bees and commit their time and expertise to the protection and well-being of the bees. I am honoured to be a member of the East Sussex Beekeeping Association, expertly chaired by Brian Hopper.
One leading expert in this field is Professor Francis Ratnieks, our only professor of apiculture in the UK, whom I had the privilege of meeting last weekend. Rarely has public interest in the plight of the honey bee been more prominent. The written media have focused on the devastation of colonies from varroa mite, protozoa, viruses and bacteria. Martha Kearney, in her recently aired documentary, looked further afield to include the devastation wrought on honey bees from the uncertain world of colony collapse disorder which has dramatically affected pollination. Those whose radios are on soon after 5.45 in the morning have heard the welcome, necessary and detailed analysis as the Farming Today team on Radio 4 monitors the progress of honey bees in its own hives, the challenges posed by disease and the decimation of colonies of bees.
The Government have made welcome progress towards funding the necessary research to enable beekeeping to be modified so that the dramatic plight of the loss of bees and colonies can be arrested. With them, those of us interested in conservation and agricultural practice share a keen interest to reverse the decline in honey bee numbers and further understand the behaviour of these remarkable creatures. It was a month ago to the day that the Government announced that £10 million would be spent on research for pollinators, bees, butterflies and other insects. The objective of this announcement was driven in no small measure by a determination to arrest the decline in UK populations of all these insects. The funding was not 100 per cent new, nor exclusive to Defra. Indeed, it covered £2 million from the Government with the balance coming from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government.
Along with British Beekeepers Association I welcome the announcement, but I am concerned about three key issues. First, can the Minister provide assurance that the £10 million, while welcome, will not be watered down with myriad small and unco-ordinated research grants covering a wide range of the thousands of insects which, to varying degrees, can be termed pollinators? It is clear to those of us interested in the subject that research into the honey bee must take priority and the lions share of the funding. Even then, it is doubtful that the decline in bee populations will be managed without a further increase in funding.
Secondly, can the Minister ensure that the funding committee which will oversee the research acts quickly and co-ordinates effectively? Thirdly, can the Minister assure the House that the funding committee will be constituted of experts, with at least one member of it as an expert in the honey bee?
With the permission of the House, I should like to address these issues in greater detail. I believe that the main need is for further research and action in the following general areas: what is killing beehives; how to keep our beehives alive and healthy, including control of the varroa; and how to reverse the decline in hive numbers. At the moment it is unclear how the £10 million will be allocated. It may be helpful if the beekeepers, probably a representative of the BBKAthe British Beekeepers Associationwere on the funding committee. I am hoping that a good share of the funding will go to the honey bee and that university researchers will be allowed to apply.
I am not sure what the timescale of this will be but I am concerned. In my experience it is likely to be something like this. First, there will be a call for proposals in a few months, after deliberations by funding bodies on priorities and so on. As there are six funding bodies, it may take longer. There will be a deadline for proposals to be submitted to funders. Probably at least three months is needed to allow researchers to do this. Then there will be a review of proposals. This can take up to six months, but must surely be speeded up in this case. As we can see, this process will likely take a year, and then the projects that are funded can be started. Again, it normally takes at least three months, and potentially more, to
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I have a suggestion: I would be grateful if the Minister could look to fund existing projects as well, but only existing projects on a fast track which fully match the stated interests of Defra, which recently wrote a report, and the National Audit Office, which recently undertook an audit on bee health. In Healthy Bees: Protecting and Improving the Health of Honey Bees in England and Wales, Defra stated that:
The plan describes the five main things we want to achieve working with, individual beekeepers, their associations and other stakeholders. These are: To keep pests, diseases and other hazards to the lowest levels achievable; To promote good standards of husbandry to minimise pest and diseases risks and contribute to sustaining honey bee populationsprevention is better than cure; To encourage effective biosecurity to minimise risks from pests, diseases and an undesirable species; To ensure that sound science underpins bee health policy and its implementation; and ... To get everyone to work together on bee health.
The NAO report pointed out the need for funding university-based bee health research and also commented favourably on the vital work undertaken on hygienic bees.
The potential for diluting the welcome investment in research into pollinators is critical. That is why I encourage the Minister to look for a swift rollout of support and a few key projects to be funded. As I have mentioned, there are thousands of pollinators but the bee population is unique and, in many respects, it is that unique nature that is likely to maximise the effectiveness of the research programmes. For the most part, bees are kept by beekeepers; as such, they are man-managed. They do the hard work for us. By interpreting their dances we can tell where they are going and where they are not going. By providing information about how honey bees use the landscape, we in turn can provide guidance to farmers and landowners about how they can improve the use of the precious resources of the countryside. This position was endorsed by the NFU. In welcoming the £10 million research programme it called for accurate targeting of the funds to identify and solve the real problems facing the key pollinators of crops.
Some specialists put down the plight of the honey bee to climate change alone. I do not share their view. On the contrary, the blame levelled on climate change for far-reaching change in our environment is too frequently abused, erroneous and oversimplistic. The rarely heard first cuckoo, the growingly infrequent songs of the nightingale, the millions of tonnes of poison on the earth, the pollution of the oceans and even the forest fires of Australiaa product of inadequate water retention rather than climate changeare more accurately ascribed to the challenge of environmental management, which lies in our own hands. Real environmental change will come from a change to our landscape. Just as bees constantly monitor the landscape to seek out the most profitable sources, so should we mirror their behaviour by protecting and nurturing the environment on which they depend.
There is little doubt that we must, as a matter of urgency, breed disease-resistant, hygienic bees and provide breeder queens to beekeepers. Breeding disease-resistant, hygienic honey bees is at the heart of the Sussex plan. I live in that county and I commend the report to the House. To me, this is essential work. It will take another three or four years to realise the benefits of this research; after all, animal breeding never ends. Rearing honey bee queens is not a panacea but it is a string to the beekeepers bow. This debate is about strengthening that bow through improved, increased and urgently required research now.
We also need to address the question posed in the Sussex plan of research, development and extension. The main question was: how good is the British countryside for honey bees? The number of beehives in the United Kingdom has declined by nearly 75 per cent in the past century from approximately 1 million to 280,000. One major reason for this is a change in land use, leading to fewer flowers. Fields of wheat and barley now have few weeds. Fields of grass now have few wild flowers, and clover is less used. Much of the heather moorland has been ploughed up. To stay in business, commercial beekeepers need hives to produce reasonable honey crops.
I recommend that the Minister, in taking urgent action, also asks all government departments and related agencies to consider specific planting programmes to support the honey bee. The Forestry Commission could surely look at planting programmes for specific trees, such as acacia or limes. The city of Sheffield, by planting tens of thousands of limes, now produces a superb crop of lime tree honey when the weather is kind. Town planners should take a similar approach. The enterprising initiative by the village of Hailsham in Sussex to plant to support the honey bee population is a potential showcase example for towns, villages and cities across the country. Let us call for a return to planting clover. Let us ensure that the Olympic Park, the largest new urban park in Europe, is planted with bee colonies in mind so that local honey can be managed and bottled by local communities, which can bring that local produce to the table of the worlds athletes and the communities in the East End of London for many years thereafter.
That leads on to supporting the Sussex plan, not just for its own merits but as a blueprint for counties and regions across the country. Colony collapse disorder, leaving beehives deserted of honey bees; the growing prevalence of virus-based diseases; the use of insecticides, as evidenced by the gypsy moth spraying in the United States; the wider spread of the tracheal mite, pathogens, protozoa, viruses and bacteria; the impairment of bees navigational skills; the loss of 30 per cent of our colonies; and the year-on-year decline in honey bee numbers surely all require action today.
What is more, for once this is an area of government policy that would be widely popular. The protection of honey bees is popular with the public. Why not set up programmes in all our schools to monitor the waggle dance on YouTube for children to decipher this remarkable animals signal and learn about environment management schemes in their towns and countryside? Farming Today listeners and its cohorts of AB letter-writers
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Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for initiating this debate. I declare an interest as an associate member of the Scottish Beekeepers Association. I pay tribute to the valuable part that such associations play throughout the country in the promotion of beekeeping and in the education of beekeepers.
I speak with limited knowledge, having kept one hive in an urban environment, but recent publicity about the plight of bees has aroused public interest in beekeeping countrywide, not least in towns and cities. For instance, a recent edition of the Scotsman featured a lady who about a year ago had taken up beekeeping and now keeps two hives in her small garden in Partick in Glasgow.
An increase in the number of beekeepers with what might be described as amateur status can be helpful in maintaining the number of honey bees within this country, but it may exaggerate some of the problems that now beset beekeeping. From my own experience, I am well aware of the problem of the varroa mite, which has been described to me by a professional beekeeper as the single greatest threat to the honey bee in Scotland. Despite fears voiced in recent documentaries, colony collapse has not been a significant feature of the Scottish scene.
However, the spread of the varroa mite in Scotland has been marked in many areas. Another beekeeper living in Argyll told me that until a year or so ago his hives had been free of varroa, but they had now been affected. He suspected that the mite had been introduced by bees transported from an area elsewhere in Scotland where varroa was rife.
I have been advised that there remain areas in Scotland where bee colonies have not as yet been affected by the mitenamely, remoter areas to the north and west of Scotland and some of the islands. Such varroa-free areas have the capacity to provide a valuable research resource. Among the bees that flourish in such areas is the native dark honeybee, Apis mellifera mellifera. Because of their remoteness, some such colonies are unlikely to be hybrid and therefore are a valuable, if not unique, genetic resource that should be carefully guarded from hybridity and consequential genetic erosion and protected from infestation by the varroa mite. The introduction of other species of bees into such areas can serve only to encourage the generation of hybrid strains, as has happened elsewhere. These factors suggest that urgent consideration should be given to the restriction of the movement of bees from areas where varroa is known to be prevalent to such
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There is one further consequence of the spread of the varroa mite in Scotland. A major source of forage for bee colonies in Scotland is heather, which does not flower until relatively late in the season. The single authorised treatment for the varroa mite that is thymol-based works only at higher temperatures that often do not prevail after the heather honey harvest has been completed. That is essential because late summer treatment cannot commence until honey is removed from the hives. Research into more protective and longer lasting treatments for the varroa mite would be a valuable addition to the armoury of the Scottish beekeeper, and probably of beekeepers throughout the United Kingdom; there must be a community of interest in these matters throughout the country.
My message in this brief intervention is to encourage research as well as restriction of movement. I look forward to hearing further from the Minister on these matters with particular regard to the problems of Scottish beekeeping concerning unique genetic resources, movement controls and difficulties of varroa treatment, as well as on the other specific and more general points that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has raised and others will raise in this debate.
Lord Patten: My Lords, I am full of agreement with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochbroom, about the need to look into this important issue across the whole of the United Kingdom in an integrated way. Indeed, I would go further and say that it needs a pan-European look, because this problem affects much of western Europe. That said, I am not a scientist and I have absolutely no interest to declare in the issue except in the subject itself.
That the problem exists but cannot be easily explained and then shared is self-evident. This is not one of those crises that is amenable to some magic new law or freshly minted set of regulations, let alone freshly minted government expenditure of a huge amountalthough my noble friend Lord Moynihan was quite right about the way in which the £10 million should be spent. In other words, this is a problem to which all the usual public policy panaceas are not necessarily easily applied. There are sometimes extraordinary population explosions in the animal world, mirrored by equally extraordinary population declines. There can be sudden or, on occasions, long-drawn-out declines. There is an unpredictable asymmetry to these swings and roundabouts in nature, in which mankind is sometimes a damage-doing participant and sometimes a surprised and worried spectator, as are many of us in your Lordships' House this afternoon.
The present honey-bee catastrophe made manifest in sudden or colony collapse disorder is not amenable to simple explanation. There are perhaps half a dozen possibilities which have been advanced. Some of them may be interconnected; it may not be just the mite, which I understandI stress that I am no scientistto be very much like a little spider. It may not be the
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I have been told by those who are more expert than me that up to one-third of our diet needs pollination. As my noble friend Lord Moynihan pointed out, while bees do not have an absolute monopoly on the activitythere are lots of other pollinatorsthey are probably the nations prime pollinators of ground fruits such as raspberries, of top fruits such as apples and pears and of legumes such as beans and peas. Any failure of pollination in those crops will therefore be manifested pretty quickly and in-year. For trees, it may be slightly different. Let us take one obvious example which I think we all know: the horse chestnut in the wild. Failure to pollinate that tree would equal no conkers. No conkers equals no later regeneration of that patch of woodland by that and other species of trees. So there mayI say only maybe a dendrological time bomb in woodlands whose effect would be generational rather than annual. It would not be noticeable for years, but it is an added dimension to the problem which my noble friend described so clearly.
Overall, the impact on our rural productive economy of total failure in the pollination cycle has been estimated at many hundreds of millions of pounds. What can be done? I have sought advice from some experts. There seems to a consensus that solutions, whatever they are, must be broad brush and integrateda thought that I owe to one expert beekeeper who is also a highly distinguished and very successful former chief executive officer of the Meteorological Office.
I have four suggestions for what might be done. First, there is the need for integrated pest and hive management, which not only strives to find ways of dealing with the mite but also involves better treatment of gut diseases by antibiotics, close attention to hygiene and careful temperature control in the winter. This and much more is needed. The message of integration needs to be spread.
Secondly, we need the promotion of cost-effective research, which my noble friend Lord Moynihan put his finger right on. The research effort must not be dissipated; it must be cost-effective. It should be across
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Thirdly, I turn to bee inspectors. I have never seen a bee inspector, and I do not know whether they wear a uniform or what it might be like, but I am told that those important people, with their unfettered and police-like powers of entry, have been much reduced in numbers in recent years. Can the Minister give us up-to-date numbers for bee inspectors and explain whether there are plans to increase their capacity, at least temporarily, during the looming catastrophe which we face with the honey bee? Perhaps we could lure former inspectors out of retirement and back to hive patrolling for a period of years to fill the gap and help out until a solution is found, as we all hope.
Fourthly, I say cautiously, because I am ideologically opposed to regulation, that the Government should consider for the period in which the problem is being tackled and resolved the need at least for temporary registration of all beekeepersI do not say regulation but registrationto give an accurate geography of where the problems are and where the bees are being kept, be it in Hailsham in Sussex or a back garden in Partick, because people will need all the advice they can get. I say this with temerity, because I know how temporary registration schemes have a terrible habit of becoming permanent, but I speak of something which is strictly limited to allow solutionsif they are to be foundand good practice to be disseminated among all those who keep honey bees.
Many other measures in addition to those four can be taken, most of which have been clearly pointed out by my noble friend Lord Moynihan. In the week of the Chelsea Flower Show, wildlife-friendly gardens are very fashionable. Planting with an eye to bees can make a useful contribution to bringing the urban and the rural nations together, although it has to be handled with care. My noble friend mentioned the importance of the planting of lime trees in increasing honey production in Leeds. I can think of one species of lime, Tilia petiolaris, which is very floriferous and wonderful to smell but has a terrible narcotic effect on the bumble bee, which after a short period falls drunken on the ground with its legs twitching. Happily, it generally recovers but almost immediately returns to the flowerI guess that that is a habit also of some humans, on returning to the scenes of their intoxication. So, beware Tilia petiolaris.
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