Animal Rights Bees: A mention of Bumblebees

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Page One :Animal Rights Issues Concerning Bees

Page Two :Why it is it so important that we should stop exploiting bees

Page Three
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.

...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.

Extracts from Plight of the humble bee.

"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

Plight of the humble bee - Times Online

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, hey 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. The Bumble bee conservation Trust Gardening for bumblebees includes on its website a list of suitable plants and a fact sheet "Gardening for Bumble Bees". Also on the same website Wildflowers for bumblebees includes a fact sheet "Creating a Wildflower Meadow" . Visit the home page
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust where you will also find information by clicking the tab "Help the Bees" of other bee friendly actions, such as advice for land management and how to build a nest box.

There are projects under way to make the countryside more bee friendly such as Operation Bumblebee. The purpose of this project is to establish special conservation areas with suitable Bumblebee habitat planted around fields.

"The results we have seen on our farm has been incredibly exciting The Operation Bumblebee wildflower habitats are full of colour and teeming with insect life. The speed at which bumblebees and other insects have colonised even small areas of dedicated habitat is quite remarkable." Mike Southall, Farmer

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

Also see Bee facts

credits:

Bumble bee banner Creative Commons — Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Bumble Bee (close) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

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.