Bees and an Unusual Visitor to the Market

I have, in the past, written a couple of posts about the decline in bee numbers and other pollinators and I have also mentioned a couple of times the fact that I leave part of my field wild throughout the year to encourage insects. In addition to my wild field, this year, although not intentionally, I have also left a big part of my front lawn wild. Mostly because the grass got so long that cutting it will now involve a petrol strimmer and a bad back for a week or so! This isn't quite as bad as it sounds. I live in the countryside and whereas an unruly front lawn might be frowned upon on a neatly coiffed, well manicured, suburban estate, here in deepest darkest Cornwall it's not a big deal. It's a good job really because I have no intention of mowing any more than I have to this year. The alarming lack of insects in my garden and field at the moment is very noticeable and so far, there have been hardly any bees around and I have not spotted one single butterfly so far this year.

So, it was with great interest yesterday at the market, when the man who supplies us with local honey brought with him not only several jars but also a white padded envelope. Curious to see what he was about to show us, we crowded around the table and lo and behold, in the white padded envelope were a two white plastic containers with 15 compartments and in each compartment, along with some icing sugar solution for food, were some bees. A Queen bee, identified by the red spot on her back and some drones (I think he said they were drones) to keep her company. It was fascinating. Amazingly, the bees were delivered by next day special delivery via the Royal Mail and even more amazing was the price. £600 for 15 Queen bees! That's quite a chunk of money but I'm guessing well worth every penny if it helps the bee population recover. It will be interesting to find out how the new hives are getting on, hopefully it will go a little way to helping out the declining bee populations.

One of the trays of bees

As for the unusual visitor to the market, he appeared on Thursday. All morning I was sure I could hear a peacock. Not wanting the others to think I was slightly batty, I didn't mention anything at first until I couldn't stand it any longer and went for a look around. This is what I spotted wandering around on the grass near my car. Not so barking mad after all :-)

The Plight of the Honey Bee

Yesterday, whilst reading through some of the blog posts on the many fabulous blogs I follow, I came across a new post by Brigit Strawbridge. Now some of you might remember her from a series called "It's Not Easy Being Green" where Bee, her husband Dick (of the Scrapheap Challenge and huge mustache fame) and their two children turned a farm in Cornwall into an eco house. Well Brigit is something of an eco warrior and has written many blog posts and several articles on the plight of bees, their decline and the main causes of the problem. She also gives excellent advice on how to plant your garden with plants and flowers to attract insects, in particular, bees and butterflies, into your garden. You can check out her blog here

wikipedia

Bees and other pollinators are critical to food production and these tiny animals pollinate one-third of all the food produced on our planet. In recent years, the serious decline in bee numbers has been attributed to several factors. The increasing use of pesticides, in particular, neonicotinoid pesticides such as Imidacloprid, invasive parasites, habitat loss and disease. The pesticides interfere with the bees ability to navigate back to the hive, and has also been shown to account for an 85% loss of queen bees being produced in the hives. When you add this to the massive decline in flower meadows and the shift from flower borders in gardens to paved patios and decking and the honey bee is in serious trouble, amounting to a total of almost 50% of honey bees being lost in the last 25 years. 

                                                                        Co-operative

                                                                            

Anyway, Brigit's article got me thinking. In my field, each year, I keep a large patch of ground uncultivated. It's never mown, except to strim a path every few weeks to the field gate so I can feed my llamas, I never ever use pesticides on anything either in my field or in my garden and I encourage a wide variety of insects into the field and garden as much as I can. The reason behind this initially was that in a big wall, behind my house, we have bats. All bat species are protected and the flies and flying insects that are attracted to the plants growing in the wild patch are eaten by the bats and I didn't want to cut off the bat's food supply by cutting down the weeds and other not-too-decorative plants.

The Guardian

This year though, in addition to the wild patch, I am also actively going to be planting flowers and plants that are specifically aimed at attracting bees and butterflies. My local cheap-as-chips-buy-anything-and-everything store, Trago Mills, sells a huge variety of seeds that are bee and butterfly friendly and last year, my local Morrissons were selling boxes of seeds for flowers that attract bees and butterflies that you just shake onto a patch of bare earth, water and wait to see what pops up. I never got around to shaking the box last year so this year, I shall be shaking and planting vigorously and hopefully will be rewarded with swathes of fabulous meadow flowers and bees and butterflies galore all pollinating my fruit and veg plants.

Sheffield University

On February 25th, 2013, a proposal to ban three of the most widely used neonicotinoid pesticides enters EU law, and if there is a majority vote in favour of the ban it could mean that the honey bee population may, in time, recover. Hopefully it won't be too little too late.