Our native honey bee - extinct?

The importance of bees for plant pollination is enormous and, since the devastating arrival of the varroa mite, active bee management is essential for bee survival.  There are certainly some feral bee colonies in the wild, but sadly it’s currently not known whether we still have any colonies at all of our native black honey bee Apis mellifera mellifera.

The course was teaching how to build a simple beehive know as a “top bar hive” – a low cost alternative to the standard Langstroth hive that is becoming increasingly popular with amateur bee-keepers.  In a top bar hive the bees build their comb suspended from a rail or “top bar”, without the constraints imposed by the frames of a Langstroth hive.  The main reasons for the increasing popularity of the top bar hive are that only a small part of the colony is exposed when inspecting the hive, and that honey is harvested by taking individual combs, rather the whole “super” of a Langstroth hive (containing 8-10 frames).  This makes bee-keeping in a top bar hive much less invasive, and proponents claim this approach has significant benefits for the health and prosperity of the hive.

Tim Ayers' bee hive course - students proudly displaying their handiwork.

It isn’t all upside, of course.  The main drawbacks of the top bar hive are lower productivity, and the honey can’t be extracted by centrifuge so it’s usually produced as a honey comb – something some people consider a special delicacy.  But for many people the primary role of bees is to pollinate plants, and the fact you can only harvest part of the honey is a fair trade-off.

The key to attracting wildlife into our gardens is the use of native plant species, rather than the exotic ones we see at our local garden centre from as far afield as China, the Himalayas, South Africa and the Americas.  Attractive though they may be, they don’t do a lot for our native fauna.

Thankfully, there are plenty of native plants to choose from.  If your garden is big enough, an oak tree can support nearly 300 species of insects (plus up to 150 species of mites).  Willow, birch, hawthorn and blackthorn are the next highest ranking, so a traditional mixed hawthorn and blackthorn hedge, with the occasional elder, alder buckthorn and hazel mixed in, is a great habitat – and the haw berries and sloes will feed the birds well beyond Christmas.  Other small trees and shrubs you could consider include crab apple, wayfaring tree and guilder rose.

Herbaceous plants are perhaps more of a challenge.  A weed is often defined as simply a plant growing where we don’t want it, and that certainly applies when designing a wildlife planting.  Some of my favourite natives for the garden include ox-eye daisies, bisort (Polygonium bisorta) – which is also useful for its foliage, angelica (very structural), foxgloves, fennel, harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) and giant bellflowers (Campanula latifolia), as well as native bluebells. The daffodil is a native, too.

Nettles and thistles are ideal for butterflies, but if you’re worried your garden will end up looking like a collection of weeds, how about a wildflower meadow?  A strip of long grass, cut only once a year to encourage flowers to seed, can provide a miniature wildlife corridor to connect separate areas of native planting.  Wildflower meadows have a reputation of being problematic, but one of the easiest techniques is to simply strip off the top 2 inches of topsoil and lay wildflower turf.  (You can see some photos of a project where we did this on our Facebook page.)

Even if you only have a tiny, paved courtyard, you could still make your own “insect hotel”!

........you could consider an Insect Hotel

Whatever you choose to do, by including some wildlife-friendly areas in your garden you will be making your own unique contribution to our wildlife.  You could even enter The Big Wildlife Garden competition organized by the RHS and Wildlife Trusts – see  http://www.bigwildlifegarden.org.uk/wildlife-garden-competition.

Its funny how you get to take familiar things for granted – it was only when I read about the Oil Beetle Hunt, being run by Buglife (The Invertabrate Conservation Trust) this spring, that I realised the blue-black beetles all around might actually be a bit special.

Black Oil Beetle "Meloe proscarabaeus"

It turns out they’re black oil beetles (Meloe proscarabaeus), and they’re from a family of beetles that are becoming rare enough to warrant priority status under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.  I must have counted over 10 beetles this afternoon, and countless nest burrows.  Our friends aren’t the rarest oil beetles, but they have an interesting lifecycle.

Nearby, the grass was buzzing with small black bees – solitary mining bees, I think (I even managed to snap a photo of one).  It turns out the female beetle lays hundreds of eggs in her underground burrow.  When the larvae hatch, they crawl onto flowers, and lay in wait for a suitable mining bee.  They grab a ride and, once back in the unfortunate bee’s nest, they feed on the pollen and nectar before emerginging as an adult beetle.

Mining bee "Andrena cineraria"

Another solitary bee which emerges around now is the friendly little Osmia rufa – rather like a honey bee but with any orangey colour.  They don’t sting, and don’t do nearly as much harm to walls as people think – so please don’t harm them.  There’s more info on solitary bees, as well as downloads and links, on the Devon Beekeepers’ website.

And if you see any oil beetles, do report your finds to the Buglife survey.

BzzzZZZZZzzzzzz……………….

P.S. A Buglife investigation contradicts the Government position on bee poisoning by neonicotinoids.  If you see evidence of bee poisoning, you can report it through the DEFRA Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme.  Only by reporting will the evidence be available to influence Government policy.

I was going to post something about planting for spring interest, but that will have to wait as my thoughts drifted to spring of last year, when I kept finding dead bumble bees on my daily dog walking route, through fields of oilseed rape.  I found so many dead bees, day after day, that on one walk I collected them all up – over 30 in less than an hour!   The explanation offered by the “experts” I contacted was that the bees had probably died of cold.  But I have my doubts.

Today the UN published a report on the decline of bee populations around the world.  The significance of bees to human survival can hardly be overstated: of the crops that provide 90% of our food, 71% are polinated by bees.  The report’s findings indicate the problem is widespread, and the causes are complex.  However, pesticides are one of the key suspects.

Apis mellifera on Cephalaria gigantea

Italy, Germany, France and Slovenia have all banned certain pesticides because of their deadly effect on bees.  Sadly, despite some compelling evidence, both new disclosures (check out this Independent article) as well as older news (e.g this  soil association briefing), the UK Government doesn’t seem ready to act.  Perhaps the lobbying has been a bit half-hearted – it emerged in January that the British Beekeepers’ Association had been receiving money from the pesticide manufacturers.

So, what can you do?  Well, today the British Beekeepers’ Association issued an invitation to a debate at the House of Commons, so if you’re in town why not pop along and have your say?  Meanwhile, back home in the garden we can steer clear of bee-deadly chemicals:  complimentary planting is always a good idea, there’s a list of pesticides to avoid here, and a free download from www.biobees.com here.

Please also join the AVAAZ Petition to get neonicotinoides banned in the EU and US – as I write this over 1.2 million people have already signed up!

Lets hope it isn’t too late for our familiar honey bee Apis mellifera……..

Update 20 June 2011: Slovenia confirms neonicotinides caused bee deaths, and announce lawsuit against manufacturers.