Blog written by Julie Hurst, volunteer blog writer

“The hum of bees is the voice of the garden,” said horticulturalist and writer Elizabeth Lawrence. But what was once the definitive sound of summer is now sadly absent from many gardens today, following the dramatic decline in the number of bees. However, the plight of these pollinators, critical to our food chain, hasn’t been ignored; in fact, quite the opposite. When it came to the nation’s attention, it captured people’s hearts and led to the launch of the ‘Save the Bees’ campaign.

Although the number of bee species had been steadily dropping since the 1990s, the marked reduction frequently reported from the mid-2000s onwards really started alarm bells ringing. Everyone from seasoned gardeners to groups of schoolchildren got involved to try and help reverse the downward trend, but while well-intentioned, the prevailing narrative was based on misleading information.

ALL POLLINATORS ARE UNDER THREAT

Bees, for example, are not the only pollinators. There are estimated to be more than 4000 species of insects in the UK that pollinate our crops and wild plants, together responsible for every third mouthful we eat, and evidence supports the fact that they are all under threat. As Andrew Whitehouse of insect conservation charity Buglife has said, “Across the board we are seeing a loss of the abundance and the diversity of pollinating insects. We are seeing threatened species becoming more threatened and more rare”. But of most concern was, and still is, the crucial detail glaringly absent from the campaign – the root cause of the problem being our reliance on intensive farming.

INTENSIVE FARMING IS KILLING THE COUNTRYSIDE 

Intensive farming is behind the disappearance of most of our wildflower meadows, which bees and other pollinators rely on for food and shelter. We have lost a staggering 97% of these areas since 1945, as well as other wildlife-friendly features such as hedgerows, water meadows, and ponds. Not only has this farming method transformed the physical landscape to the detriment of its natural inhabitants, but the industrial processes involved have compounded the negative effects even further.

Intensive farming favours monocropping, which is the planting of the same crop on the same piece of land year after year. By using the same seed, pest control techniques, machinery and growing method on an entire farm, farmers can maximise their profitability. However, in doing so, they dramatically reduce the variety, quality, and quantity of food available for bees and other pollinators. Also, whereas natural fertilizers such as ‘cover-crops’ would provide an additional source of food, these have been replaced by synthetic substances due to their immediate impact on crop yields. Chemicals, including herbicides, which kill off any so-called weeds that would provide feeding opportunities; fungicides, that particularly affect bees’ metabolism and weaken their immune systems; and insecticides, which impact bees’ ability to learn, communicate, and find their homes, and adversely affect egg-laying and colony development, are now all commonly in use.

HONEYBEES ARE BEING EXPLOITED

Simply put, our agricultural system, which relies on bees and pollinators, doesn’t support their survival. However, rather than address this directly, we have turned to bees themselves to try and solve the problem. Bee farming and the commercial pollination services it provides are a growing industry. The Bee Farmers’ Association currently represents some 500 bee farming businesses in the UK, and pollination services in this country are valued at £600m each year.

Not content with exploiting honeybees for their honey, beeswax, propolis, bee pollen, royal jelly and venom, we have also co-opted them into becoming industrial pollinators. They are less effective than other bees as pollinators of cultivated crops, but their ability to cope with domestication means they can be easily manipulated. As such, while extinct in the wild, certainly in the UK, managed stocks of honeybees have continued to increase, and sadly, but unsurprisingly, the treatment of farmed honeybees mirrors that of other farmed animals. Every aspect of their lives is tightly controlled, from birth to slaughter.

THE LIFE OF A FARMED HONEYBEE

Honeybees are kept in artificial hives designed to facilitate easy access, inspection, and controlled breeding and withstand stacking and transport rather than suiting the needs of the bees. Typically, hives can contain up to 40,000 bees, but managed hives can house up to 80,000, and with such high stocking densities comes the increased risk of disease and rapid transmission rates. In the absence of a natural diet of floral diversity and an overreliance on nutrient-deficient, chemically-sprayed monocrops, they are subject to artificial feeding regimes. Weak and vulnerable, they are routinely as well as preventatively treated with drugs. 

Despite being sensitive to vibrational noise, honeybees are crowded into rumbling trucks and transported around the country to provide the required pollination services to farmers and growers. Travelling from site to site each season is completely disorientating for them. Ordinarily, they would live in a single location and cover a radius of a few miles, finding their way back to their hives from visual cues. But instead, they are continuously having to try and reorient themselves. The bees also undergo genetic manipulation to help bee farmers ‘to produce more colonies with the traits they desire’, and finally, they are slaughtered, which is apparently cheaper than housing, feeding and providing disease prevention over the winter. 

A CYCLE OF EXPLOITATION

Honeybees endure immense suffering in our quest to try and compensate for a declining wild pollinator population, and our abusive actions may actually be exacerbating the problem. Firstly, in view of the large numbers being introduced into environments, the honeybees are at risk of outcompeting native pollinators for food. And secondly, given their poor health, they may also be introducing and transmitting diseases into the wild.

But even more disturbing is that according to a recent report, 40% of the UK’s most productive agricultural land is used to grow food for farmed animals. Wheat to feed chickens and pigs makes up half of our annual wheat harvest, and up to a third of our yearly oat harvest is also destined for livestock. We are therefore presiding over a cycle of exploitation, manipulating one species in order to feed others who are also being manipulated and abused and not forgetting that the havoc we are wreaking on natural habitats is the cause and consequence of the process. However, this cycle can be broken.

NATURE-FRIENDLY FARMING IS THE WAY FORWARD

As plant-based diets become increasingly popular, the simple economics of supply and demand will eventually result in a reduction in livestock numbers, and less agricultural land will be needed to grow animal feed. While this would obviously be a huge win for farmed animals, the likelihood that land will continue to be intensively farmed to produce food for people is very real, and the prospect of changing the entire agricultural system is much more challenging.

However, given the increasing awareness of its far-reaching and environmentally devastating consequences, conversations around this issue are now being had, and a transition to nature-friendly regenerative agriculture is at least being discussed. As cited in a recent article in the Journal of Insect Science, ‘Industrial agriculture is not the only way. It is one way. It is a way that we made. It is a thing we can change', and in doing so, we can truly ‘save the bees’.

As always

For the animals.