Too few unsung heroes

The honeybee is the unsung hero of the countryside, but there are 13.4 million too few colonies to properly pollinate Europe’s crops.

New research from the University of Reading shows that demand for insect pollination is growing five times faster than the number of honeybee colonies across the continent as farmers grow more oil crops and fruit.

Researchers compared the number of active beehives to the demand for pollination services in 41 countries and mapped the changes between 2005 and 2010 and found that there are not enough honeybees to properly pollinate the crops grown in more than half of European countries – and the UK has only a quarter of bees it needs to pollinate crops. Europe has only two-thirds of the honeybee colonies it needs, with the deficit reaching more than 13.4m colonies.

The PLOS One study suggests agriculture in many countries is increasingly reliant on wild pollinators – bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies – and Europe lacks coherent environmental and agricultural policies to protect their habitats, it noted.

“This study has shown that EU biofuel policy has had an unforeseen consequence in making us more reliant on wild pollinators,” said Dr Tom Breeze. “The results don’t show that wild pollinators actually do all the work, but they do show we have less security if their populations should collapse.”

“We face a catastrophe in future years unless we act now,” said Professor Simon Potts. “Wild pollinators need greater protection. They are the unsung heroes of the countryside, providing a critical link in the food chain for humans and doing work for free that would otherwise cost British farmers £1.8bn to replace.”

Potts says there is a growing disconnection between agricultural and environmental policies across Europe as farmers are encouraged to grown oil crops, but there is no joined-up thinking on how to help the insects that pollinate them.

Agricultural policies exacerbate honeybee pollination service supply-demand mismatches across Europe

See the Reading researchers talk about their work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CgFrdwd3wI