In Issue 71

Dear friends

This Journal aims to bring you alternative views of world apiculture. This edition is being put together from Tobago, where I am working with Gladstone Solomon and Tobago Apiculture Society towards development of their beekeeping industry. At a meeting of beekeepers here yesterday, several voiced their concern that bee stocks are dwindling, for reasons unknown. Every visitor can see that vegetation is disappearing from this Caribbean island, as increasing wealth and more tourists bring demand for new buildings and roads. Beginner beekeepers are finding it hard to get started - there are not the numbers of bee colonies that there used to be.

Far away from here in Northern Europe, beekeepers are also losing their bees. This edition brings a disturbing article by Bérje Svensson, Silent Spring in Northern Europe, in which he describes losses of honeybee colonies during the last three years. The reason is unknown, although Bérje proposes possible explanations. What is certain is that honeybee populations are dying. In Europe honeybees are indigenous insects, part of the ecosystem and vital for the maintenance of biodiversity. If honeybees are being killed by toxic factors in the environment, then other insects are being killed also, with unknown consequences for all the birds, plants, fish and mammals whose existences are interrelated.

Without beekeepers, would anyone notice the loss of honeybees? Certainly other species of bees and other insects have been allowed to become rare or extinct. Beekeepers, by maintaining honeybee populations, are performing a vital role in maintaining biodiversity. It is time to view beekeepers and their bees as ‘biodiversity maintenance workers’ rather than just mere honey producers. Farmers in industrialised countries receive payments for conservation work: sometimes these amount to payments to leave their land alone.

As honeybee populations are reduced, and as beekeeping becomes harder because of environmental degradation and increasing bee diseases and predators, people may need more incentive to keep honeybee colonies. Perhaps they should be paid for doing so? Beekeepers need to unite and lobby for greater recognition of the vital role and hard work of bees and their keepers!

Nicola Bradbear, Director Bees for Development

Bees for Development

1 Agincourt Street, Monmouth NP25 3DZ, UK Tel: +44 (0)1600 714848 info@beesfordevelopment.org www.beesfordevelopment.org