WHICH BEES 'STING' AND WHICH DON'T?

A great many people are wary of bees because they fear being stung, but the truth is that bees are far more interested in going about their business foraging for pollen and nectar than they are in stinging human beings. Only in rare cases will a bee sting without being seriously provoked - and many species of bee don't sting at all.

Honeybees

Honeybees are equipped with a sting which they will use to defend their honey stores or their queen. They will also, of course, attempt to use their sting if they think you are threatening their lives by standing or sitting on them. 

The sting of a Honeybee (worker) is barbed, so it remains under your skin after it has pierced you. When the bee attempts to fly off her intestines are pulled out, so unless you can remove the sting without damaging it she will die. Honeybee queens can sting repeatedly, but as they spend almost their entire lives inside the hive, the odds that you will encounter one are fairly remote.  

It is worth noting that honeybee colonies have somewhat variable temperaments, from extremely docile to quite tetchy. This is down to genetics: certain crosses can be hard to handle, even by experienced beekeepers. The good news is that honeybees almost never sting anyone who is not close to their nest/hive, so don't worry about being stung whilst gardening or walking through a field.

You are less likely to be stung whilst honeybees are swarming than at any other time. 

Male honeybees have no sting

N.B If you have reason to think you may be allergic to bee venom, you should carry an Epipen



Bumblebees

Bumblebees are not naturally aggressive and it takes a lot to provoke them. They will only sting if their nest is threatened or if you squeeze them, sit on them, or stand on them. 

Buff tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) posturing

If they do feel threatened by you they will 'tell' you. They do this by raising one of their middle legs in the air. When you back away, they relax and put their leg back down again - but if you go closer (and if they are unhappy about this) they will lift another leg in the air. If you go closer still - they will lift two legs up vertically in the air and turn onto their back to show you their sting! This is called 'posturing' but very rarely leads to them actually stinging you.  If bumblebees DO ever sting, their sting has no barb like the honeybee, so they do not die afterwards.

Male bumblebees do not have a sting.  

You can identify the males of some species quite easily by their pale yellow facial hair and little yellow moustaches. Also, male bumblebees are in less hurry than the females when foraging and have thin hairy legs (females have a wide shiny, smooth, flattened corbicula on their back legs and are often carrying pollen)
I often stroke bumblebees (male and female) in my garden, or pick them up from pavements and roads to put them in safer places. None of these bees have ever stung me.

Tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum)

I should just add that there is one species of bumblebee, the Tree Bee Bombus hypnorum  who has a reputation for being  a little aggressive. As with any other bee, they will completely ignore you whilst they are out foraging, but this particular species is slightly more defensive in the vicinity of her nest than other bumblebee. More info about this bumblebee species HERE 

Leafcutter (Megachile centuncularis)

Solitary bees

There are over 240 species of solitary bee in the UK alone... and at least 20,000 worldwide! It is VERY rare for anyone to be stung by one of these bees. As solitary bees have no honey stores to protect, there is no reason for nature to have provided them with a good defence weapon like that of the honeybee. The females are equipped with tiny stings but rarely, if ever, do they use them. You would have to squash them to provoke them to sting - and even then, the sting on most of these bees is so insignificant that it cannot even pierce human skin.

There are just one or two exceptions. Although the effect is not as severe as a honeybee sting, our tiniest species of ground nesting solitary bee, Lasioglossum and Halictus, both have fully functioning stings capable of penetrating human skin and both can pack quite a punch.

None of the male solitary bees have stings.

N.B. If you have reason to think you may be seriously allergic to bee venom, you should carry an Epipen.

If you are not allergic (the majority of us are not) but you DO get stung by a bee, look for some plantain - chew it up a bit at the front of your mouth - and then spit the chewed up leaf and saliva on the sting.






Many thanks to Natural Beekeeper, Phil Chandler, of Biobees for his input on honeybees

Spring Bumblebees

This is such  an exciting time of year! The signs and sounds that herald the arrival of spring are all around us. Winter bulbs are beginning to flower, buds are tentatively coming into leaf and the birds are singing their little hearts out. The anticipation of warmer days to come is almost tangible. 

Nothing excites me more though, than seeing my first queen bumblebee of the year.  Although there are one or two species (most notably Bombus terrestris) that occasionally continue to raise broods over the winter, for the most part our 26 species of UK bumblebees have been hibernating deep beneath the soil since last Autumn.

  

With bumblebees, it is only the (already fertilized) queens produced towards the end of the colony's lifecycle that hibernate beneath the ground and survive the winter. Apart from the odd overwintering B. terrestris colony, last year's males, and all the female workers, will have died out long before winter set in.  So, if you see an ENORMOUS bumblebee on the wing at this time of year, she will be one of the new queens that have just emerged from hibernation. 

First bumblebees to emerge

The first bees to emerge from hibernation are usually Bombus terrestris (commonly known as the buff tailed bumblebee) followed closely by the much smaller B. Pratorum (early nesting bumblebee), B. hypnorum (tree bumblebee) and B. lucorum (white tailed bumblebee)

The newly emerged queen will forage for nectar to build up her strength after her long winter's sleep... and for pollen to develop her ovaries.  Hopefully she will have chosen a hibernation site near an area with a plentiful supply of winter flowering heathers, gorse (right), crocus, dead nettles and pussy willow. However, if the sun has tricked her into emerging too early and there is nothing for her to feed upon she will starve. So these and other early flowering plants are literally life savers for our early rising pollinators. Other early spring favourites include hellebores, white dead nettle, snowdrops, green alkonet and lungwort.

Prospecting for a nest

Once she has replenished herself with nectar and pollen, the queen bumblebee's behaviour changes. She now begins to fly in a zigzag pattern, just above to the ground (especially where there are piles of dead leaves and rotten wood) as she prospects for a suitable site to build her nest. A bumblebee's preferred choice for a nest would be a vacated mouse, shrew or vole nest....but with the demise of our hedgerows and woodland edges, these are becoming harder and harder to find. Other preferences (depending on the species) include tussoky grass, compost heaps, crevices beneath stone walls and bird boxes. Those that are fortunate enough to find a suitable nest must be prepared to defend it from other bumblebees, as competition for suitable nesting sites is high. 

I don't know for sure, but I imagine that one of the contributing factors to the success of B. terrestris whilst many other species are in decline, could be that it steals a few weeks on other species in the 'nest hunting' race - thereby managing to establish its colony before some of the later species begin to emerge. I should add here that the main reason B. terrestris is one of our more common species is that, together with the others known as the 'big eight', she is a 'generalist' rather than a 'specialist' when it comes to foraging. This means she is not a fussy eater, so doesn't rely on just a few types of flower, or habitats, for her survival.

Establishing a colony

So, let us assume that our overwintering bumblebee has successfully found a plentiful supply of pollen and nectar rich flowers, stumbled upon a vacant small rodent's nest (or something else reasonably suitable such as a compost heap, a dry warm hole underneath a garden shed or the pocket of an old coat) and managed to avoid the myriad not-so-mutually-beneficial parasites that often 'do for her' before she can arrive at this stage. She is now ready to establish her colony. This stage will have been reached, depending on the species of bumblebee, at any time between early spring and early summer. 

You will know when a queen bumblebee has reached this next stage, because her behaviour will change again. Instead of zigzagging across the ground she will now begin to fly backwards and forwards from her nest with great purpose... and the pollen baskets (corbicular) on her her hind legs will be absolutely laden with pollen. This suggests she has established her nest.

Inside her nest, the queen will have fashioned a little wax pot - around the size of a small fingernail - which she will have filled with nectar to feed herself so she can keep up her energy levels should she have to remain in the nest during inclement weather. She will have removed any debris from the site and waterproofed it to the best of her ability. Then, once the nest is ready, she will mix together some pollen, nectar and saliva to form a little ball into which she lays half a dozen or so eggs. From now until the time her first brood of workers emerge, her time will be divided between 'brooding' and nipping out to forage.

                                    Pollen laden b. terrestris worker on buddleia last summer

Brooding

Bumblebees 'brood' much like birds, in that they sit on their eggs and keep the temperature at around 30°C . They do this by disconnecting the flight muscles inside their thorax and shivering their muscles.

Unlike birds, however, bumblebees are single parents, so they need to keep their foraging trips short and sharp in order that the temperature in the nest doesn't drop too much. Once she has laid her first batch of eggs the bumblebee queen will always face the entrance of the nest so she is ready to ward off any unwelcome intruders. Her little nectar pot will be close enough so she can easily dip her proboscis (tongue) into it, to sup the nectar she has previously collected, whilst she is brooding. 

After the eggs hatch (a couple of days after they have been laid) the developing larvae feed upon the pollen provisions and go through various growth stages before spinning cocoons around themselves and pupating. After two weeks in their cocoons they will emerge as fully grown adult bees. The first few broods are alway female 'worker' bees. They are usually much smaller than the queen and will take on the roles of nurse maids, cleaners, guards and foragers.

From this time onwards the queen bumblebee is unlikely to leave the nest.

                      

Just a quick note before I sign off about the impact that 'habitat loss' is having upon bumblebees and other pollinators.... 

Over the last seventy years we have lost 98% of our once rich and diverse grasslands and wildflowers, as well as small woodlands and hedgerows. This has caused greater knock-on effects than many people realise. 

Knock-on effect for bees

The disappearance of these wonderful habitats has drastically reduced the diversity of flowers that used to provide such an excellent source of pollen and nectar for some of our now rarer bees. It has also resulted in loss of habitat for many of our small mammals. Fewer small mammals obviously means fewer small mammal burrows... which in turn leads to fewer suitable nesting sites for bumblebees. From a human-centric point of view, the decline in the bumblebee population impacts very seriously on our food supply. Not only are bumblebees the main pollinators our legume crops, but they are also the only insects that are able to pollinate crops such as tomatoes, aubergines and blueberries.  

We would do well to spend a little time thinking about the knock-on effects and consequences of our actions before we tamper with Mother nature!   

Anyway, that's enough for now; I've jumped way ahead of myself considering it's so early in the season - and it is bot my intention to write a blog about the complete life cycle of the bumblebee.

I'll write more as, and when, this year's nests become established, but if you can't wait and want to know more now, there are links below to two wonderful sites containing loads of information about all things 'bumble'......

Have a beautiful sunshine filled day and thank you for reading this blog post.

B xx

P.S.....I do talks about bees and am taking bookings for 2016 and 2017 so I can continue raising awareness of the importance of these incredible creatures, the reasons for their decline and what we can all do to help.

Please look at my talks page for more details http://www.beestrawbridge.blogspot.co.uk/p/talks.html 

For more information about bumblebees please have a look at the following sites...

http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/

http://www.bumblebee.org/

Why is Bee Decline Not an International Emergency?

I'm beginning to wonder just what in the world bees need to do to grab the attention of the media and the general public the way other issues grab them? 

Within the next month or so (date to be confirmed), EU member states will vote, again, on the European Commission's proposal to restrict the use of three of the most widely used neonicotinoid insecticides on certain flowering crops throughout Europe. The results of this vote are of ENORMOUS consequence. We're talking here about nothing short of mass extinction if our already depleted pollinator population is not protected from continuing poisoning by these, and other insecticides. It's not as if we haven't already pushed them to the brink by destroying, degrading and fragmenting their habitat. 

Before the last vote took place on March 15th, a number of member states raised objections to certain aspects of the EC's proposal, but the UK, alone, rejected the entire proposal. On the day, the UK 'abstained'. The voting system requires that there need to be more votes in support of the proposal than those against and those abstaining added together...so in this case the UK's abstention was as good as voting 'against' the proposal. Because there was not an overall majority either way the proposal will be voted on again at the end of April or in early May.

The UK government are quite clearly doing everything they can to block this partial ban.  

You'd have thought the unprecedented decline of the creatures responsible for pollinating a third of the world's food - not to mention over 80% of all the flowering plants on this planet - might prompt concern; that it might justify a mention on the six o'clock news, or an appearance on the front page of the national newspapers. You might also have thought the media would have something to say about our government's dangerous stance on this issue.....

But no. This issue is barely ever discussed in the media so the majority of the population remain completely oblivious of the fact there even IS a problem. I believe people would be outraged if they were to understand exactly how serious bee decline has become - but the fact it's not making headline news means we are not party to the information that might make us think twice about using pesticides - and/or prompt us to plant bee attracting flowers in our gardens. One of the most frustrating things about bee decline is that it is something we could all do something about. If only we knew it was happening. 

I appreciate that the recent horse meat issue was absolutely scandalous, but seriously, it was a picnic in the park compared with the possibility of mass insect extinction. And, make no mistake, if we don't do everything we can to halt the decline of bees and other pollinators, that is exactly where we're heading.

As I've written in previous posts, pesticides are not the only cause of bee decline. We have lost 98% of our wildflower meadows and grasslands since the end of the second world war and this has already had a very serious impact on bee species and population. There are other contributing factors such as climate change, pollution, disease and (for honeybees) the practices involved in large scale commercial beekeeping. 

Banning, or at least restricting the use of the neonicotinoid group of insecticides that are implicated in bee deaths will not in itself solve the problem; but it will go a long way towards it. It's too late to bring back most of the the lost habitat, and we can't halt climate change tomorrow, but we KNOW these pesticides are contributing to bee decline and it is within our power to stop using them and revert to more sustainable farming practices. 

Bees are not only important as pollinators of human food. They are 'keystone species' within the world's eco-systems. A world without bees would result in a world without the wild flowers they pollinate, along with the loss of the birds, amphibians and small mammals that feed upon the seeds and other parts of those wild flowers - and of course the predators further up the food chain that rely on the small birds and mammals to keep them alive. And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

Talking about icebergs, I'm beginning to understand what it must have been like to be aboard the Titanic just before she went down. A few of the passengers have noticed the iceberg and realise the implications should the ship not change course immediately - but most of them are either turning a blind eye, listening to the latest celebrity gossip, and putting their trust the ship's captain who says he's concerned about the iceberg but needs to see 'unequivocal scientific evidence that hitting ice-bergs causes ships to sink' before he will give the order to turn his vessel around.

Anyway, it's beyond my understanding why something as obvious and tangible as bee decline isn't getting the publicity and attention it deserves, but in the mean time you can help by writing to your MP and asking him/her to put pressure on Owen Paterson, Secretary for the Environment to vote in favour of the EC's proposed partial ban on neonicotinoid pesticides.


You can download a template for your letter from the BUGLIFE charity website here -  Letter to MP template 

And for up-to-date information about the current situation please read this excellent post by Matt Shardlow CEO of Buglife..... The Flight of Neonicotinoids

 
Loss of wild pollinators serious threat to crop yields, study finds




Thank you for all that you do! 

Brigit x

Wildlife Corridors Needed Please!

We have lost 98% of our UK wild flower meadows and unimproved grasslands in the last 70 years. 

The decline began with the mechanisation of agriculture back in the 1940s, was compounded by the introduction of herbicides in the 1960s and spiralled out of control when farmers were given  common market grants in the 1970s to grub out hedges... drain marshy areas... fill in ponds... and plough and re-seed pasture with new fast growing grasses and monocrops.

Declining species

Our landscape has changed beyond recognition - and the impact this has had upon our once rich diversity of flora and fauna cannot be understated.

These changes in our native wild flora have caused declines in many species and populations of farmland birds, small mammals, amphibians and invertebrates - but have been especially devastating for some of our specialist long tongued bumblebees such as the Great Yellow Bumblebee, Bombus distinguendus, and the Short Haired Bumblebee, B. subterraneus.

Most of our long tongued species of bumblebee have a preference for the wildflowers that thrived in the hay meadows of yesteryear - and for the leguminous crops (in particular red clover) that were grown in crop rotations in days gone by. Unfortunately, the flowering plants that used to provide these bees with their main source of nectar seem to have suffered disproportionate declines over the last 70 years compared to other flowering plants.

There are, of course, months of the year during which oilseed rape and other flowering monocrops provide for the needs of bees and other pollinators, but these are of no use to bumblebee queens when they emerge from hibernation to establish new colonies in the spring - or when their colonies are producing new daughter queens in late summer/early autumn. Lack of suitable flowers to forage at these times can lead quickly to the death of the entire colony. A bumblebee colony will only thrive and succeed in producing new queens if there is a continuous succession of suitable flowering plants from spring through to autumn.

The lack of abundance of wild flowers with long corollas has resulted in many of our grassland bumblebees becoming rare, endangered or extinct. Fewer long tongued bumblebees leads to a reduced pollination service for our surviving wild flowers. This, in turn, leads to fewer flowers to feed the remaining populations of long tongued bumblebees. This feedback process is known as 'extinction vortex'. Given the fact that bees are 'keystone species', the knock on effect this process could have upon other species of flora and fauna doesn't bear thinking about.

Wildlife Corridors

There are still some fragmented pockets of meadow and unimproved grassland left in the UK, but these are like islands amidst a sea of monoculture farmland and urban sprawl. It is of paramount importance that more corridors of nectar and protein rich wildflowers are created to link these habitats, so that the endangered bumblebee populations nesting within them (not to mention the many other creatures that have become marooned in these wonderful, but isolated wildlife havens) are not so vulnerable to the effects of inbreeding or other external causes of decline such as pesticides.

The Co-operative are addressing this need for wildlife corridors in their pilot project Bee Roads which is creating five hectares of food-rich main routes for pollinators in Yorkshire - and the Welsh Government have, this year, announced a Pollinator Action Plan. However, these projects will take time to establish the clock is already ticking for some of our rarer bumblebees.

There are also a number of incentives in existence at the moment, including various levels of Environmental Stewardship which encourage farmers and land owners to manage their land in a more environmentally and wildlife friendly way. However, just as these schemes are celebrating their 25th anniversary, it is feared that EU cuts could slash the budget for UK wildlife conservation which would be a disaster for many of the species that depend on these schemes for their very survival.

Can We Help?

Is there anything that can we do to help? The answer is emphatically yes!

There are over one million acres of private garden in the UK and these could potentially provide bees (and other wildlife) with the corridors they so desperately need to move around between larger areas of suitable habitat.  

To create these much needed corridors, all we need to do is plant suitable flowers.

I'm not going to make a list of 'what to plant' as there are plenty of websites and books (links below) that already give far better advice and information on planting than I could offer. The one suggestion I will make though is that if you have a lawn, perhaps you might consider allowing it to grow a little longer before you mow it!  Just a few extra inches will allow clovers, vetches, trefoils, selfheal and other low growing nectar and pollen rich flowers to grow and bloom.

One last thing. Please contact your local authorities and ask them to stop filling the hanging baskets and roundabouts in our towns and cities with bedding plants! Bedding plants are no good to man nor pollinator. Far better to plant something like lavender which needs less watering, smells divine and provides much needed food for bees.

Advice....

Plantlife

Bumblebee Conservation Trust

The Pollinator Garden

Where to buy your seeds and plants......

Bee Happy Plants

Plantwild

And some great books.......

RSPB Gardening for Wildlife

Plants For Bees

Where Have all the Flowers Gone?

P.S. To end on a positive note; most of the shorter tongued bumblebees, and two of the longer tongued species (the Garden Bumblebee, B. hortorum and the Common Carder Bumblebee, B. pascuorum) seem to have adapted very well to the flowers we grow in our gardens, so are currently in less trouble. These bees are 'generalists' and are equally happy foraging on wildflowers, garden flowers or exotic non-native flowers.

Thank you for reading to the end.

Brigit x

Why Bees Need Trees

I’ve just returned home from a lovely long walk in the woods on the lower slopes of the Malvern Hills. I walk these woods as often as I can and always take my camera with me. I can pretty much guarantee - from March through till mid September - that the understory, clearings and edges will be ‘abuzz’ with numerous species of bumblebees, honeybees and (on sunny days) solitary bees as they enjoy the foraging and nesting opportunities afforded by this wonderful diverse habitat.

I'm absolutely fascinated by bees; from the different frequencies at which they buzz, their purpose in life and the challenges I face trying to identify them – to their life cycles, their behavioral traits and the myriad relationships they have built up over the millennia with flowering plants. I cannot imagine what the world would be like without bees. In fact a world without bees is, quite simply, unimaginable.

Bees as Pollinators

The unique relationship between pollinators and flowering plants has been evolving for over 100 million years and there are currently estimated to be around 200,000 different species of animal worldwide acting as pollinators. These include beetles, bats, flies, wasps, birds, butterflies, moths and some mammals; but it is without doubt the humble bee that does the lion’s share of the work. 



From a 'human-centric' point of view, bees are responsible for pollinating around a third of the food we eat (this includes meat from animals that graze on bee-pollinated clover and alfalfa) - as well as many of the crops we grow for drinks, medicines and textiles. However, bees are important for more reasons than the fact that they pollinate food for human consumption..........

Bees also pollinate over 80% of the world’s wild flowers and, interestingly, whilst great attention is always given to the bee’s role as our main crop pollinator, we would do well to note that they play an equally important role as ‘keystone species’ in the planet’s eco-systems. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

BEE DECLINE

There has been a great deal of coverage in the media over the last decade about the Decline of the Honeybee, whose value to the ‘economy’ has been estimated at many £££billions. 

But, apart from the fact that honeybees should be valued for more than just their economic worth, it is important to note that: 

a) it is not just honeybees that are in decline 

b) honeybees our not our only pollinators. In fact, of the 100 or so crops that feed and clothe the world, it is estimated that 15% are serviced by domestic honeybees - whilst over 80% are serviced by native wild bees and other wild pollinators. 

N.B  By no means am I suggesting that any one species of bee is more important than another. They all have different roles to play and are active at different times of the year/day. Without honeybees there would be very little pollinating going on early in the year and we would have no lemons, without bumblebees out tomato and blueberry crops would struggle and without solitary bees our apple trees would suffer. 

Here's a very interesting list of 'who pollinates what' - List of plants pollinated by bees

Setting aside, for a moment, their importance as pollinators of food, medicine and textile crops for humans, I‘d like to come back now to the fact that bees are ‘keystone’ species - playing absolutely crucial roles in sustaining many of the world’s eco-systems.

If you remove a keystone species from any given eco-system, you risk at the very least a great reduction in the biodiversity of that community - and at worst it’s complete collapse.

Eco-systems are incredibly complex; each made up of numerous, diverse, dynamic, interconnected communities. 

We cannot keep removing the building blocks that hold these systems together and expect them to survive. 

By compromising the earth’s eco-systems we compromise all life on Earth, including, ultimately, our own. Our lack of joined-up thinking and our blinkered human-centric behaviour are, ironically, leading us to neglect and destroy the very systems that nurture and sustain us. I cannot over emphasis the importance of the role bees and other pollinators play in supporting and maintaining the fragile balance that allows ‘life as we know it’ to exist on planet Earth.

There are over 25,000 species of bee in the world and around 250 of these species live in the British Isles. British species include the European Honeybee, 24 species of Bumblebee and over 230 different species of Solitary Bee. All are suffering from the effects of intensive agriculture, pesticides poisoning and urban sprawl, which, together, have led to the fragmentation, degradation, and loss of their once rich and diverse habitat. Add to these factors the effects of climate change (which has caused significant problems for bees this year) and a rise in disease and pests - and it’s no wonder our poor beleaguered bee population is on the brink.

(N.B. As well as the alarming decline in honeybee populations, 3 of our bumblebee species have disappeared over the last 50 years, many more bumblebees and solitary bees are severely threatened and there are currently 7 bumblebees and 10 solitary bees on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) priority list.)

To halt this decline we need to take action NOW. Talking, debating, spending millions of £££s on further research to tell us what is already glaringly obvious, writing reports and holding summits on the other side of the world are all very well, but without immediate ACTION these are a complete waste of time.

So what has all this got to do with trees and woodlands…..?

From the trees point of view, most are wind pollinated so they could survive without bees. There are exceptions however; including fruit bearing trees such as apple, pear, cherry and almond which all rely (some exclusively) on bees for pollination.

The importance of trees for bees is, however, is an entirely different matter. The fact that most trees are wind pollinated doesn’t preclude them from being incredibly rich food sources for bees and other pollinators – in fact certain species of trees provide an absolutely vital source of pollen and nectar for early spring foraging bees.

Honeybees store sufficient honey to feed the colony through the winter, but need to replenish their stocks by early spring. There is very little around in the way of flowering plants during the first few months of the year, so the early flowering willows, especially goat willow, provide them with a lifeline. Willow is also a vital food source for early rising bumblebee queens when they emerge from hibernation. Just walk along any riverbank on a sunny February/March day and you will easily locate the willows with your eyes closed by the sound of bees buzzing in the branches above your head.

Deforestation has been occurring in the British Isles since the arrival of Neolithic man and has reached the stage where, today, less than 12% of the UK is still wooded. Crucially, less than half this area is planted with native trees (the rest being planted with non-native conifers) - and only 2% of the land area in Britain is still covered in ancient woodlands. Given how little of our ancient woodland remains, it beggars belief that in the last 10 years 648 ancient woods have come under threat from unnecessary or insensitive development. 

Add these figures to the fact that we have also lost 98% of our wildflower meadows and grasslands since the 1940s... and it is no wonder our pollinators are in trouble. 

Habitat decline has impacted enormously upon our once diverse wildlife and we simply cannot afford further losses....of habitat or species. So many species of bees and other insects, not to mention small mammals, amphibians and birds, are now teetering on the brink - and what remains of our ancient and native woodlands provides an absolutely vital source of habitat and forage for many of these remaining species and populations.

Whilst the media and the 'powers that be' continue to bang on endlessly about the economy, time is gradually ticking away. For every single moment that their focus remains on the perceived importance of rebuilding the economy rather than addressing the very real importance of the imminent breakdown of our eco-systems, we are coming closer and closer to a sixth major extinction scenario. It really is quite bizzare that these seemingly intelligent people are so blind to this fact!

We need to address both issues of ‘habitat loss’ and ‘pesticides’ (which I haven't gone into in this article but have written about in detail here) urgently and simultaneously. 

What can we do to help?

Whoever you are and whatever your circumstances and skill sets will determine the part you have to play in helping to halt the decline of biodiversity. You may like to plant more trees, hedgerows and/or flowers; write to your MP about these issues; join a local wildlife group; support the amazing SAVE OUR WOODS campaign; stop using pesticides; ask your local garden centre to stop selling pesticides containing neonicotinoids or send a link to this article to a friend!

Anything you do is better than doing nothing. Doing nothing is not a good option.

N.B. Do please check out this site, packed with stunningly beautiful photographs, to find out more about the amazing world of  Woodland & Hedgerow Bees 

TREES FOR BEES

Willow (NP) Pear (P) Apple (NP) Cherry (NP), Crab Apple (NP) Medlar (NP) Quince (NP) Sweet Chestnut (NP), Acacia (NP), Field Maple (NP) Mountain Ash (NP), Alder (P) Blackthorn (NP), Horse chestnut (NP), Hawthorn (NP), Crab apple, Lime (N), Whitebeam (NP), Sycamore (NP) Hazel (P) Holly (NP) Bramble (NP)

* N = nectar; P= pollen

Excellent website for wildlife gardening 

Thank you for reading this.

Much love,

Brigit x

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Mass Insect Extinction; the Elephant in the Room?

Life on planet earth has evolved over billions of years and has, to date, endured five major mass extinctions

Billions of species of flora and fauna have been and gone, but one class of species has proved extremely resilient (so far) to whatever changes have occurred on the planet and - apart from losing a few of their orders and suffering a reduction in diversity during the end-Permian period - has been the only class species to have survived all these extinctions.

I am speaking of course about the class 'Insecta' - Insects to you and me.

Insects are amazing - in every sense of the word. There are currently over 900,000 known species in the world, each performing different roles within our eco-systems. Not only do they form essential ecological links as predators and parasites, but they are also responsible for the vital roles of decomposition, soil processing and, of course, pollination. Insects have also contributed to the evolution of many other species; the most notable being the relationship they have formed with the flowering plants with which they have co-evolved over the last 100 million years.

Many insects are 'keystone species'. This means a number of other species depend upon them for their existence. If you were to remove a keystone species from any given eco-system it would upset the balance and that eco-system would collapse. Nature is all about balance. 

Given the fact that many of the planet's keystone species are insects, it's most fortunate that they have proved so resilient to change. So far.

Insects Facing Mass Extinction

Unfortunately, over a period of just 100 short years, things have changed so dramatically that this amazing class of species is now under threat. For the first time ever, insects are facing mass extinction

Let me ask you a question......

When did you last have to stop your car during a long journey to clean away dead insects from the windscreen? 

When I was a child (back in the 60s) we used to travel up the A1 to Yorkshire to see my grandmother and I remember my father having to make regular stops to wash the windscreen - which was splattered with so many dead insects that the wipers alone couldn't keep it clean.

I also remember seeing huge flocks of birds following the farmer's ploughs in the fields alongside the road; all of them feeding on an abundance of worms and other invertebrates or micro organisms living beneath the surface of the soil that had just been exposed by the farmer's plough.

These days there are so few insects that our windscreens remain clear from Land's End to John O'Groats. And there are no longer flocks of birds following the tractors, because in many fields there's little, or no life left in the soil.

How can this have happened in such a short period of time? Simple. It is down, unequivocally, to Man's chemical poisoning of the land, the oceans and the biosphere. That, and our obsessive desire to tame, manage, degrade, fragment, destroy and 'mow to within an inch of it's life' the once rich and diverse habitats that used to support insects and other biodiversity.

I say this because it needs to be said. Again.

We were warned of this scenario in the 1960's by Rachel Carson in her book 'Silent Spring'. We are being warned again by Henk Tennekes author of 'A Disaster in the Making' and by organisations such as Pesticides Action Network who campaign tirelessly to raise awareness of the dangers of pesticides and other toxic substances.

But why is this issue not being addressed as a matter of urgency in the media? Why do I not see any evidence that mass insect extinction is being taken seriously by the powers that be? And why are the NFU, who you'd have thought would be championing the insects that pollinate our crops, so hell bent on persuading the government to lift the moratorium on neonicotinoids?

Excuses, excuses, excuses.....

Having raised this issue myself on numerous occasions with people from all walks of life, I am tired of hearing the same old arguments from those who advocate that we 'need' these toxic substances to survive.

The arguments range from "We can't feed the world without the use of pesticides" to "What about all the jobs dependent on the pesticides industry…. people can't afford to lose their jobs" - and many more arguments besides.

These arguments are unbelievably short sighted. Without insects (not to mention unpolluted soil, water and atmosphere) man will not survive anyway. Very little will survive. We are destroying our tomorrow for the sake of our today. And the craziest thing of all is that it doesn't need to be like this because small scale, organic and sustainable farming can and will feed the world. 

Of course it's not just the agri-chemical and pharmaceutical industries doing the damage...insects need habitat to survive too. They need environments where they can forage, nest, breed and hibernate - and this is something we can all help to provide.

Do something about it....

It is time for us to face the facts, however uncomfortable they may be. We can only effect change if we know and understand that change needs to happen. Burying our heads in the sand isn't going to solve anything....it never has.

It's way past time for us to address our obsession with 'tidiness' and 'cheap food' - both from bottom up (you and me) and top down (governments and local authorities) we need a complete sea change.

Humans are amazing, resourceful beings. All we need to do is wake up to the reality of the damage we are causing, shift our mind sets a little and  do something about it!

Ways you can help:

Leave wild areas in your garden for insects (not just bees and butterflies) to forage, breed and hibernate.... and resist the temptation to 'tidy up' your gardens and allotments over winter. Also, wherever you can, please try to source food that has not been grown with the use of harmful chemicals.


Make your garden a haven for pollinators The Pollinator Garden

Join Buglife

Get involved with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

Take part in surveys, such as the UK Ladybird Survey

Become a Bees, Wasps & Ants recorder

OR.... simply spend some time lying in the undergrowth getting to know your local insects. They are utterly mesmerising. Once you're hooked you'll wonder how you ever managed not to notice them before and you will be motivated to do everything you can to help them survive.

B x