Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the challenges facing honeybees in the UK.

There are 25 species of bumblebee resident in the UK, including the short-haired bumblebee which is currently being re-introduced under Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme.

In 2014 Defra published independent research on the status of pollinators in the UK. The study identified an overall decline in wild bee diversity over the last 50 years. This concluded that bumblebee species that have become less widespread are associated with the loss of flower-rich habitat, driven by changes in agricultural land use and urbanisation.

Both Environmental Stewardship and now the new Countryside Stewardship schemes fund the provision of food and habitat for wild pollinators. The new scheme in particular incorporates a Wild Pollinator and Farm Wildlife package which provides year-round food, winter shelter and nesting places essential for pollinators.

Although honeybees face many of these environmental pressures their population is driven by the number of beekeepers willing and able to keep bees. There is some evidence that the number of beekeepers, and therefore the number of honey bees, may have increased since 2009 as more keepers are registered on the National Bee Unit’s BeeBase and with beekeeping associations.