10 September 2011 – At the Green Party autumn conference yesterday, Keith Taylor MEP was joined by the chief executive of Buglive and the founder of the Sheffield Honey Company to discuss why bees matter and what we can all do to boost their numbers.

Keith Taylor said: “Bees are a big deal. Their total economic value is estimated to be €153 billion, that’s 9.5% of world output.

“The honey bee faces many threats – not least pesticides – and with populations around the world crashing in recent years it is important to understand the key role bees play in our lives. Without bees, how will we pollinate our crops?

“Colonies disappearing is a real and significant threat because many agricultural crops worldwide are pollinated by bees – some 87 of the 115 leading global food crops depend upon animals, such as bees, for pollination. These crops include important cash crops such as cocoa and coffee.

“Since the Second World War the amount of flower-rich grasslands in the UK has decreased from 3 million hectares to just 100,000. This has had serious impacts on the bee population, and it is clear that if the status quo continues the impact on our environment could be devastating.”

Matt Shardlow, chief executive of Buglife told members how important it was to reintroduce areas of grassland for pollinators and encouraged them to take action in their local communities.

Jez Daughtry, founder of the Sheffield Honey Company, spoke about the work done by Groundwork’s Bee Buddies project to introduce large numbers of honeybees into Sheffield and to open up beekeeping to a range of communities.

Photo credit: Flickr – cobalt123