Third of all Honeybee Colonies in England Did Not Survive Winter

Hi peeps..

It seems our bee-loved bees have taken a major dent in population once again. If this keeps happening soon honey bees and the humble bumble bees will be a rare sight. Due to the cold winter and terrible start to spring and summer the honeybee population in England alone has declined by a third. Scotland and Wales have not escaped the declining bee number either...

More than a third of all honeybee colonies in England died over the winter, according to figures from the British Beekeepers Association, the worst losses since its winter survival survey began.

On average, 33.8 colonies in every 100 perished over the long winter of 2012-13 compared with 16.2% the previous winter. In the south-west of England, more than half of all colonies were wiped out and in the northern part of the country 46.4% didn't survive.

In Scotland and Wales, honeybees fared no better. The Scottish beekeepers association, which has yet to complete its annual survey, predicts losses of up to 50%. And bee farmers in Wales have reported 38% losses.

The BBKA attributed the alarming high bee mortality to the poor weather during 2012 continuing into 2013 and exacerbated by the late arrival of spring.

www.guardian.co.uk...

"April this year was very cold, and the start of May, so bees were confined to the hive for much longer and we still had bees dying from starvation in May. So losses could be much more serious," said Glyn Davies, a beekeeper from Devon and former president of the BBKA.

He said the south-west was particularly badly hit because of the relentless rain. "It was the wet, wet, wet, wet summer followed by an enormously long winter. I've never seen anything like it in the 35 years I've been keeping bees," said the 74-year-old beekeeper.

The winter bee losses come just weeks after EU member states voted for a suspension of three pesticides alleged to cause serious harm to bees.

The loss of the honeybee could have been higher as the BBKA survey consisting of 846 members closed at the end of March. And because of the late cold start to spring it would not bee surprising if the numbers lost were over a third..

At least the ban on those pesticides was approved. However the pesticides were not the problem relevant to this loss. It is simply down to the bad weather we have been experiencing. Here's hoping the weather picks up and stays up throughout the summer and hopefully we will not have too harsh a winter this year.

Keeping my fingers and toes crossed..

Peace
Fluff

Well this is alarming to say the least. That is a HUGE number of dead bees! At this rate we won't have any left - not much longer before food prices sky rocket even more I imagine. Mass civil disorder and starvation is coming alright if the trend in the bees declining continues...

reply to post by fluff007


The Bees are dying everywhere atm.. There have been record die offs in several countries... Its ok Monsanto are making robot bees to save us and are creating crops that dont need to be pollinated by bees.. So when we kill the bees off everything will be ok..

reply to post by Wulfric


Yes sadly the poor bees have been taking a bee-ating. I wish there was more we could do for them. But we cannot control the weather.

Oh but wait TPTB can... lol

I suppose all we can do is support our local bee keepers. Support our own local bees with providing lots of different flowers and places to rest or live...