Book #51 A Buzz in the Meadow

A Buzz in the Meadow by Dave Goulson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Buzz in the Meadow is a captivating look at our natural world through the eyes of Dave Goulson, who I know better as the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, that august body, of which I am a member. In 2003 DG bought a derelict farm in the heart of rural France, together with 33 acres of surrounding meadow. Over the course of a decade he created a place for his beloved bumblebees to thrive along with myriad insects of every kind. A significant part of the book contains his own research, alongside that of other scientists, into the threat posed by the use of neonicotinoids as pesticides and their devastating affect on bee populations around the world, something that the giant, multi-national manufacturer of agrochemicals, Bayer, widely disputes. Only to be expected as they resolutely defend a US$4 billion market. Well, neonicotinoid pesticides do cause harm to bees and I urge everyone to read this book. It is inspiring and should encourage everyone to cherish what we have. It illustrates what wonders we stand to lose if we do not change our ways. Biodiversity matters, in all shapes and forms and DG's farm, Chez Nauche, is an island where nature can thrive; places like this though are too few and far between. A Buzz in the Meadow provides a real insight to our natural world and a call to arms for nature-lovers everywhere.

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Neonicotinoid impacts on birds

The catastrophic impact of neonicotinoid pesticides on bees has long been suspected but now it's becoming clear that they are hitting farmland bird populations too.

Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides in the world. They are toxic to most arthropods and they are widely applied as seed dressings because they act systemically, protecting all parts of the crop. Like so many pesticides used in the past they can persist and accumulate in soils and leach into waterways.

As a result of many studies, both in the laboratory and in the field, there is a widespread view among entomologists that neonicotinoid use has - in combination with the loss of flower-rich meadows, disease and mite infestations - contributed to the decline of bee populations. They are much less toxic to vertebrates and until recently evidence of any impacts on birds has been merely suggestive. However, a recent paper by Caspar Hallmann and his colleagues published in Nature has shown that decreases in bird numbers in the Netherlands shown by the Dutch Common Breeding Bird Monitoring Scheme have been most rapid in areas with highest environmental concentrations of neonics.

Read the paper here

Call for Environment Secretary to Resign

Take a look at the obnoxious Owen Paterson posturing in parliament about the badger cull. One Labour MP called on him to resign as I am sure the majority of the voting public would welcome as well.

http://www.itv.com/news/west/update/2013-10-10/call-for-environment-sec-to-resign-over-badger-cull/

Owen Paterson is an industry puppet. This is the minister who makes nonsensical claims about the benefits of GM technology and clearly does not understand the dangers genetically modified crops pose to the ecosystem. Despite this, Owen Paterson has launched a campaign to grow GM crops in Britain.

Owen Paterson is a key member of the Conservative right along with chancellor George Osborne, education secretary Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith, the Work & Pensions secretary. That is some gang of four, each one of them despised by so many in Britain. The worst of these is Mr Paterson - he is against gay marriage, deeply sceptical about Europe and has yet to clarify whether or not he believes in man-made global warming. In April he fought against a Europe-wide ban on nerve-agent pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, which many scientists believe are accelerating the decline in bee populations, arguing that there was insufficient evidence. I am sure that he has a vested interest in Monsanto...

To have this man as our environment secretary is of major concern as it appears he cares nothing for the very cause he is supposed to champion and defend. He prefers to slaughter our cherished wildlife in spite of irrefutable scientific evidence that this is indefensible madness that is already costing millions of £s that could have been far better spent on a programme of inoculation.

Owen Paterson must go.

Horizon: What's Killing Our Bees?

This documentary aired last night on BBC2 and was presented by Bill Turnbull who has been keeping bees for 12 years. It was excellent, a well balanced and thought provoking documentary concerning the plight of our bees. Bill said that for many beekeepers the main challenge over the past few years hasn't been harvesting honey, but simply keeping their colonies alive.

Honeybees are the only insects that produce food for us in the form of honey and the work they do in pollinating our crops is vital. One mouthful in every three that we eat we owe to the work of bees, but their numbers have been falling for decades.

The list of suspects that has contributed to this alarming decline is several:

• the weather. This year's cold spring could have been fatal for many colonies weakened by the wet summer of 2012.
• the varroa mite, a pernicious little pest that sucks the bee's bodily fluids and in return injects it with fatal viruses. The varroa mite can wipe out a colony in a matter of weeks.
• the most controversial suspects are the modern systemic pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The EU has imposed a two-year ban on the use of three of them.
• the effect of modern agriculture on habitat. Scientists have started to show a link between the decline in bee numbers and the practice of using vast fields to grow single crops. And here is the environmental Catch-22: by boosting agricultural production to feed our growing world population we are threatening the bees on which we rely to produce those same crops.

Simple things can be done however to help turn things around and as was well illustrated in the programme. Farmers can sow wildflower strips on the edge of fields, which would give bees somewhere to feed all through the summer. And we can all do our best to plant bee-friendly flowers in our gardens - or even just in window boxes. 

It is up to us to make the changes that can save bees.