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A mention of Bumble bees
Bumblebees are fascinating and beautiful creatures that deserve conserving in their own right. However, there are also pressing ecological and economic reasons to halt their declines.
Bumblebees are major pollinators of a majority of our wildflowers. If they continue to disappear these plants will set less seed, resulting in sweeping changes to the countryside. It may become dominated by a different suite of plants. Our countryside would lose its colour. Many rare plants may disappear. There is evidence that this process is already underway. These changes will have catastrophic knock-on effects for other wildlife dependent on these plants. Bumblebees are keystone species and they should be a conservation priority.
The Bumble bee Conservation Trust
Along with the honeybee the survival of the bumblebee is also under threat. Over the past thirty years bumblebee populations have declined by a startling seventy percent; over twenty species have already become extinct and three more are on the brink of doing so. Due to changes in agricultural practices both habitat and food has become scarce as there are fewer sources of pollen and nectar and suitable nesting sites. During the past sixty years ninety eight percent of The UK's hay meadows, chalk downlands and flower rich grasslands, have been lost
Like the honey bee the bumble bee is an important pollinator, but this is not the only reason why bumblebees and honeybees need saving. They like all creatures need saving from extinction because they are a part of nature and have the right to their existence. We should not consider any creature of importance only in accordance with how they effect our own existence. Animals are here for their own purposes and many of the threats of extinction are the results of man's dubious interventions.
...Britain had 25 kinds of bumble, all merrily gathering nectar and pollinating plants and trees. Three of these already have vanished, and seven more are in the government’s official Biodiversity Action Plan (Uk Bap) as priorities for salvation.It’s the same right across Europe, and the reasons everywhere are the same — changes in agricultural practice that have replaced historic mixed farmscapes with heavily industrialised monocultures in which wild animals and plants are about as welcome as jackals in a pie factory. Insects in particular have been targets of intense chemical warfare. We are, at the eleventh hour, learning from our mistakes, but patching nature back together again is exponentially more difficult than blowing it apart.
...Most people do now get the point about honeybees. Following the multiple crises that continue to empty the hives — foulbrood, varroa mites, viral diseases, dysfunctional immune systems, and now the mysterious but globally devastating colony-collapse disorder (CCD)
But fewer people realise that bumbles, too, are important not just to some remote, bug-ridden process called “ecology”, of interest only to bearded men in anoraks. Growers of beans, oilseed rape and fruit especially have reason to feel alarm at their disappearance. So vital are they to the productivity of the fields, and so lethal the pressures on them, that farmers are having to import captive-bred reinforcements, many of them southern-European species raised in Slovakia.
"Native British bees are dying out — and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done?"
Richard Girling
Extracts from Plight of the humble bee.
http://www.bobsbeekeeping.com.au/uploads/tips/Plight of the Humble Bee.pdf
Please take the time to read this thought provoking article concerning the dire threat to bumblebees and honeybees and the ultimate threat to our own survival and that of other creatures.
What is being done to save the bumblebee from extinction?
Much needs to be done to improve the environment for bees to make it more bee friendly. Nature reserves are simply not enough and farmers need to be encouraged to set aside parts of their land to cultivate wild flowers to provide bees with a suitable flower rich habitat. Hedgerows need to be replanted, hay meadows and flower rich grasslands need to be created. There are many areas of land such as road side embankments, verges and roundabouts which could be managed to encourage the growth of wild flowers. We have a huge roundabout in the middle of our village which would not only help the honey and bumblebees find nectar and pollen, but would enhance the environment for people who live nearby. People should be encouraged to turn part of their garden into bee friendly habitats by cultivating wild flowers which also benefit other insects such as butterflies, many species of which are also teetering on the brink of extinction. Anyone with even a tiny garden could help, even a tub of wild flowers on you patio or in your backyard. My husband plans to turn a small section of his allotment into a miniature meadow.
You can find ideas and instructions how to plant bee friendly flowers in your garden or elsewhere: bumblebeeconservation.org/
Such projects not only help the bees but also enriches our environment. Last year when driving through the Yorkshire dales my family and I were delighted to see fields with borders of meadow flowers. At the time we did not know the purpose of this amazing display only that it added so much to our experience of the countryside. Was the countryside like this naturally in times past? On another excursion into the Yorkshire Dales we met an elderly man walking his dog who was visiting the area after an absence of fifty or sixty years, he remarked that so many wild flowers were missing and at one time in spring the area was covered in a variety of flowers.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to see scenes such as those below when walking or driving in the countryside, fields likes these alive with the buzzing of bees. It would indeed be a silent and sad spring without the drone of the bumblebee and the honeybee.
For more information, how you can help bees see www.nappc.org.
Page One :Animal Rights Issues Concerning Bees
Page Two : Why it is it so important that we should stop exploiting bees
credits:
Important please note:I am not an animal expert of any kind just your average person who loves animals, all animals, and feels deeply about the plight of many of our fellow creatures. Neither am I a writer, or any other expert. Therefore please keep in mind that the information included in this website has been researched to the best of my ability and any misinformation is quite by accident but of course possible.
Copyright, accreditations and other matters, please read
Graphics Credits
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48975388@N07/4751980253/in/photolist-8eV9b2-a4r8Cr-8eYEWW-8eYyT7-8eVc9R-nTuTt4-cojqKS-rd2je7-kSDstZ-opWNcp-8eYtm5-8eYEgu-8eVjSZ-8eVeYv-8d9krQ-wUW4G4-pJfv6-eTt44U-anxCrf-8eVgRe-ujr2Jq-8eYxM1-apro7o-6soUSM-eP77bV-anuNyr-6GQnsE-8eYyZf-8eVcFD-a4i7w9-8eVfL8-ab685W-a2Grrc-oGp5J9-oEEhX4-fwe6Tv-8eVd2B-8eVn6p-8eVeGv-omdS8e-8oNGkv-v1GMSo-qSKZxa-vyRDcj-71m2bC-9JWFyR-fksxvh-8eVnV8-8eYBVU-6JQbpa
Page One :Animal Rights Issues Concerning Bees
Page Two : Why it is it so important that we should stop exploiting bees
credits:
Important please note:I am not an animal expert of any kind just your average person who loves animals, all animals, and feels deeply about the plight of many of our fellow creatures. Neither am I a writer, or any other expert. Therefore please keep in mind that the information included in this website has been researched to the best of my ability and any misinformation is quite by accident but of course possible.
Copyright, accreditations and other matters, please read
Graphics Credits
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48975388@N07/4751980253/in/photolist-8eV9b2-a4r8Cr-8eYEWW-8eYyT7-8eVc9R-nTuTt4-cojqKS-rd2je7-kSDstZ-opWNcp-8eYtm5-8eYEgu-8eVjSZ-8eVeYv-8d9krQ-wUW4G4-pJfv6-eTt44U-anxCrf-8eVgRe-ujr2Jq-8eYxM1-apro7o-6soUSM-eP77bV-anuNyr-6GQnsE-8eYyZf-8eVcFD-a4i7w9-8eVfL8-ab685W-a2Grrc-oGp5J9-oEEhX4-fwe6Tv-8eVd2B-8eVn6p-8eVeGv-omdS8e-8oNGkv-v1GMSo-qSKZxa-vyRDcj-71m2bC-9JWFyR-fksxvh-8eVnV8-8eYBVU-6JQbpa