Bee news doesn't tend to be that good, but here's a couple of reasons to be a bit more cheerful. Firstly, there's been a plan in the offing for a while to re-introduce the short-haired bumblebee (Bombus subterraneus), but now it looks like it's actually going to happen.
The bumblebee was last recorded in the UK in 1988. The project will bring bees in from Sweden and release them near Dungeness, Kent.
Reason to be cheerful no.2 is the (fairly new) news that the government is now re-thinking its position on neonicotinoid pesticides. It would be good to know that those Swedish bees will be safe from harm in the find the Kent countryside.
That might have been good news if it wasn't likely to make the population in Sweden extinct as well:
ReplyDeletehttp://wildlifenews.co.uk/2012/anger-growing-over-swedish-bee-imports/
Hi Marie
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. It does seem to be a bit of a no-brainer that if you're doing re-introduction you take your bees, birds or whatever from somewhere that has plenty of them.
J