Bees

My Lords, the House is much in the debt of my noble friend Lord Moynihan for bringing up this timely topic for us to discuss. I declare my interest in the welfare of bees as a countryman and a farmer. I notice that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that the economic value of crops grown commercially in the UK that benefit from bee pollination is around £120 million to £200 million per annum. I presume that that refers to crops with an immediately marketable value. Another aspect follows on from the debate that was concluded in this House earlier on the need for an intensive strategy to reduce carbon emissions if we are to meet the Government’s 2050 target. The area of relevance to the case we are considering is the substitution of artificial nitrogenous fertilisers—which represent a huge generation of CO2—with bacterial nitrogen fixation in crops, which at the moment is confined to leguminous crops. I do not know whether I can offer any comfort regarding the concerns of my noble friend Lord Moynihan, as both organic and grassland farmers are having to turn increasingly to these crops—particularly clover—to sustain viable production. This was particularly so when the price of artificial nitrogen went above £250 a tonne last year. Although it has now dropped back to about £180 a tonne, that is still twice what it was previously. Leguminous crops are highly dependent on bees and form an important base in the honey market. Has the Minister’s department any estimate of the value of leguminous crops to the economy in their role of nitrogen fixation, and will they consider adding that to the benefits that we obtain from bees? The effect of disease on bees seems fairly straightforward—they die. I am not a beekeeper and so am not aware of actions that may be taken to heal them after disease has struck, although I believe that it is possible to remove healthy bees from a hive containing European foulbrood. As mentioned by my noble friend, the Government have persuaded key research funders to devote an extra £8 million to bee health research. This is most welcome as the previous figure of £2 million was patently inadequate. From what my noble friend Lord Moynihan said, it seems that this extra money will come from other budgets and not directly from Defra. The British Beekeepers’ Association has been active, and in its document, Honey Bee Health Research Concepts, has identified the key research projects that it would like to be pursued. Has this list been incorporated as part of the Defra bee health strategy, as I understand there has been criticism of the level of consultation that was undertaken in drawing up this policy? Like other noble Lords, I have received briefing from the University of Sussex’s specialist apiculture department. It is encouraging to see the four projects that it already has under way, and which in some ways mirror those mentioned by my noble friend Lord Moynihan. Do the Government have plans to extend this kind of research by similar outside agencies, or will their efforts be concentrated on their own research facilities such as the National Bee Unit? The Government’s report, The Health of Livestock and Honeybees in England, makes a number of points that give me cause for concern. Defra estimates that there are 40,000 beekeepers and keeps a database containing details of 17,000 active beekeepers, which is roughly half of all those who keep bees in England and Wales. It also keeps a record of 14,300 who have kept bees but do not now have any. This sounds a little bit like the DNA database, and, one wonders, at what cost? Have the "several thousand revisions" identified through the Bee Unit inspectors’ survey been entered in the records? Returning to the worries of my noble friend Lord Patten, I have been informed that one initiative springing from this new emphasis on the health of bees is to compile a complete register of all beekeepers in the country. What budget has been estimated for the cost of obtaining and registering the details of the remaining number? This type of exercise is a statistician’s delight but, given that so much research is required, is that really the most effective use of the money? Most of my information comes from the National Audit Office’s excellent publication, The Health of Livestock and Honeybees in England, published on 4 March this year. Section 4.13 deals with imported exotic diseases of honeybees. The facts are astounding to one who seldom, if ever, considers bees and fatal disease in the same breath. The spread of the varroa mite—which was much mentioned this afternoon—has been inexorable. It has developed resistance to traditional treatments and is now regarded by Defra as impossible to eradicate. It was removed from the list of notifiable diseases in March 2006. Instead, the National Bee Unit has issued guidance on methods of killing the mite and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate has begun talks in Europe aimed at relaxing the licensing requirements for treatments. There are annual imports of some 9,000 queen honeybees into England and Wales. Of these, in 2008, 5,500 came in 103 consignments from the EU and were subjected to a 10 per cent physical check, which identified two cases of notifiable disease. Imports from the rest of the world came in the form of 63 consignments, containing a total of nearly 4,000 queen honeybees. All of them were physically examined and disease or pests were found in 24 consignments—that is, 38 per cent. None of the diseases found was notifiable, but some of them were known to weaken bee colonies, making them more vulnerable to more serious infections. I find myself wondering how our bees have come to suffer both from varroa and sudden colony collapse. Is it because the infecting agent is airborne? Does it come in on imported fruit and foods carried by commercial transport, or conceivably in passenger luggage? Is it perhaps the result of the evolution of some other bug which lives here and in its original form may not even affect bees? However it begins, the disease of the varroa or sudden colony collapse variety threatens crop fertility in our fields, gardens and allotments. The severity of this threat ranges from the loss of output of £120 million per year, of which we spoke earlier, to the scenario mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, of the annihilation of the human race within four years. I do not believe either scenario and consider that such guessing games to be irrelevant, provided we take the actions necessary to protect our bees from disaster. I have been involved in farming and country management most of my life and I regret that it is most unusual for any farmer or major landowner to keep his own bees for his own crop. There are increasingly those who have in recent years made considerable efforts to ensure that they grow the sort of products that attract bees to their land. They are aware of the importance of bees to husbandry in general, but do not seem to be able to take steps to import their own bees, to house their own colonies or to encourage others to keep bees close to their land. Have the Government discussed this possibility with the NFU or have they commissioned the Bee Unit to try to extend the range and numbers of those involved? The report that I referred to makes a number of points that give further cause for concern. It speaks of an online database linked to a website, together known as BeeBase, which supplies details of the incidence of disease and guidance on best practice. The report, however, is critical of the website’s efficacy. I can do no better than quote the report, which states that, ""the website is not fully compatible with the minimum accessibility standards required for government websites, meaning that not all web-users would be able to view it properly. Typing search terms such as ‘bees’, ‘bee advice’ or similar words into an internet search engine did not find BeeBase on the first page of results, making it less likely that beekeepers previously unaware of BeeBase would have found the site. In addition, we found that some of the information on the website was out of date"." This failing is made even more important by the finding, noted in paragraph 4.17, that, ""not all beekeepers are fully aware of the regulations for importing honeybees, and some do not know that there are controls relating to imports from within the EU"." The report states that nearly 80 per cent of reported cases of notifiable disease are found by members of the Bee Unit in the course of inspecting hives; 17 per cent are notified by beekeepers already on the database, but only 3 per cent by non-registered keepers. The report comments that if disease is present in the same proportion in colonies belonging to unregistered beekeepers as in those whose details are on the database there is more than twice as much bee disease in this country than has been identified. The report goes on to suggest that this extra level of disease is not being notified because the beekeepers concerned do not know how to identify notifiable diseases or are unaware of the requirement to notify any they find. This is an important problem. Will the Minister take urgent steps to ensure that the website conforms to government standards? Will he then instruct Defra to advertise the website in other publications that are likely to reach the 17,000-odd hobby beekeepers not on the database and not in regular touch with other beekeepers? I suggest, for example, putting an advertisement in county council newsletters that are delivered to local homes once or twice each year, on the premise that someone with one hobby may well have another. It might also be possible to put an advertisement on the main noticeboard of every further education college in England and Wales. Let us hope that our efforts today will bring the issue of bee survival further up the agenda of people’s concerns.