Bees - what are we doing?

Thursday 21st January 2021

I listened to the Wildlife Trust Wildlive panel. The return of bee killing pesticides? Wild LIVE | The Wildlife Trusts. It was a discussion on the recent government decision to give emergency derogation for the use of neonicotinoids. They were banned in 2018 but our mild winters (due to global warming) mean that the aphides are out of control and cause a disease in the sugar beet crops. Neonics are an insecticide which kills the aphids - but cause other insects to die (bees are just an example but used because people love them!). It is a dilemma - insects are decreasing in numbers and that has a knock on effect on birds, mammals, pollination etc - but at the moment we need the sugar beet - there is a population to feed. Wildlife conservation is always a balance - this is exactly what one of our other university modules covers - Ecosystem services and Sustainability. More on that another day. More information on neonics - Home (savehoneybees.info).

You can imagine that the audience for the panel was pretty biased - one of the panellists was farmer Tom Clarke - putting across why he supported the decision. Very brave to be on that sort of panel and he put across a very good case. There are no winners and we do have to be realistic.