Bee populations recover
11 June 2010
Honeybees have emerged from the harshest winter in 30 years apparently none the worse for wear, according to the latest survey of colonies by the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA).
Overall about 80% of colonies have survived this year, in sharp contrast to previous years when up to 30% of honeybees died out, leading to serious concerns for their welfare. There are, however, substantial regional variations - the highest losses were recorded in the north of England, where beekeepers lost about a quarter of their honeybees, while in the south-west losses were less than half as bad at 12.8%.
Though the figures are a marked improvement, BBKA president Martin Smith says they're still too high for beekeepers to relax.
'It shows that our honey bees are slowly moving out of intensive care but they are still not healthy enough,' he said. 'Winter losses of between 7-10% are acceptable: the current rate is not.'
The UK's honeybee population has more than doubled, largely due to a steady rise in the number of people taking up beekeeping following the widespread publicity over the plight of the honeybee. There are now more than 80,000 beehives in the country, twice as many as in 2007 when concerns were first raised, and the BBKA reports its membership has risen by more than a third in the last year alone.
The situation in the United States, however, where mobile beehives are used to pollinate commercial fruit orchards, is still critical. For the fourth year in a row, more than a third of US honeybee colonies died out over winter, with some commercial apiarists reporting losses of more than half of their colonies. The losses are attributed to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, (CCD) in which entire hives die off at once for no known reason. However, there is no evidence yet that CCD has arrived in the UK.
www.britishbee.org.uk