The Threat To Bee Populations

Another article, now in the Times, about the sharp reduction in bee populations in Britain.

In the US, it has been referred to as "Colony Collapse Disorder" -- with at least a quarter of America’s 2.5 million honeybee colonies wiped out already.

Honeybees pollinate about 80 per cent of flowering crops, which in turn furnish one third of the human diet. The economic contribution that bees make to agriculture and horticulture in this country has been estimated at £1 billion, yet the looming threat to the bee population has been all but ignored. While money is poured into other forms of agricultural defence and support, the Government spends just £180,000 on bee research, a figure that has shrunk continuously over recent years. Put another way: for every £1 the bee contributes to the British economy, we spend less than two hundredths of one penny on exploring ways to keep it alive.