What is happening to our bees and summer

A world of chaos and a lack of buzz does little for ones mental health or positivity

It felt like a November evening last night. Light at 9pm but it may as well of been dark because the rain hammered down in Noah’s Ark Fashion. The rain I have battled with for much of the past years winter. Keeping hens on scrub land on a nearby organic farm, I was unprepared for the ground known locally as Cotswold brash to turn into a marsh from the end of last October. If I had been foolish enough to have been keeping sheep here then I don’t know what we would have done, they would have had a trial of foot rot by mud unless I had somehow got hold of old horse boxes and stabled them within them but I’m very glad I did not have to carry out the expense and worry of this. Hens don’t like the damp either especially those with feathered trousers and fluffy bottoms. They do not alas seem to realise walking around rather than through puddles will help in keeping their legs dry. It was a scene of despair and endlessly cold and wet evenings requiring waterproof trousers until April when the ground suddenly seemed to be able to un-moisturize itself. I was glad of the big puddles though on the farm, thinking that at least the returning house martins and swallows would this year with ease be able to find mud to replenish and make new their mud pie, half moon nests with.

This is the soul nourishing thing about being engaged or having some awareness of the natural world and its connection to the weather, winners and losers it seems as each new year with its seasons pass.

The roses in this part of the world along with young trees often planted as thirsty little bare root whips have done well this year the ground was easily opened up by the blade of a spade, wiggled sideways and then the bare root saplings could be pushed down to begin their new lives. I have planted crab apples on the land I rent for the hens. Most have made it to see this cool and wet summer.

The land the hens reside on, backs onto the organic farms very beautiful wildflower meadows. The great acreage of flowers here, consisting of wild carrot, lesser and greater knapweeds, scabious and yellow rattle is a banquet for both the eyes and for pollinators at large. A safe haven of feasting without the worry of any nectar or pollen carrying any lethal Neonicotinoid pesticides that can stay in the soil for years, and then taint any flowering plant which grows, meaning that bees foraging for nectar from a flower can be poisoned years after treated seeds were planted. Professor Dave Goulson, a bee expert and author of a number of books, including the garden jungle, based at the University of Sussex, has warned that one teaspoon of the chemical is enough to kill 1.25bn honeybees.

Defra being investigated for Neonicotinoids

I have seen very few of the poster celebrity hailed butterflies so far this year. No peacocks, Red Admirals or Tortoiseshells. In these meadows though on days when its not raining I do see a fair few marbled whites reminiscent of Sebright bantam laced feathers and what I think are meadow browns. Their silent fluttering is the most elegant thing to behold. As for bees, our little garden full of the first single dahlias with their honey washed faces full of nectar, the geums, salvias and cosmos and even echinop globe thistles are bereft of the bees that usually fill the garden. It is a scary, depressing thing to witness. For the first time, I no longer feel that good gardens brimming with organically grow flowers in great diversity will collectively be enough to save us and the bees. The evil has grown too great in both its profits and collective ignorance and now mother nature thanks to us, is quickly turning on herself to suicide. This reads as probably too dramatic, yes indeed it is - we must not give up hope! Hope is a great driver!

Will a warm autumn if we get one see the bees and butterflies return for a desperate last hooray and much required feast? Or will the continued alteration of the Jet stream resulting in low pressure with accompanying rain, continue to be the dominant force in the UK’s forecast and see autumn swiftly give way to winter.

We have known for years that our precious pollinators have been at risk suffering great declines due to wildflower meadow loss and the use both commercially and domestically from herbicides and pesticides. A new threat on the block is also posed nastily by a newcomer that is on the heels of a changing climate, the machine gun bee munching giant that is the Asian hornet. In 2023, 57 sightings of the bee-killing hornets were confirmed - more than double in the previous seven years combined. Last year, a total of 74 nests were destroyed last year. Chris Packham seems to not be at all fazed at the issue of these hornets, writing what I felt was a hugely dismissive piece in the guardian this past spring that brushed aside much of the hard work being carried out in protecting our honey bees. I put my feelings about this on an Instagram post and within an afternoon was receiving death threat messages.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckddw0wg5deo

Meanwhile, eight confirmed Asian hornet sightings have already taken place this year with one being captured in March, marking the earliest time of year the invasive species has been seen in the UK. The increase in sightings have led to fears that many nests could have been missed last year, letting queens, or 'gynes', fly out to create more nests.

The affects that climate change is to have on bees has been a more distant worry but this threat has suddenly been cranked up a gear thanks to climate change - now aptly known as climate chaos as I am now calling it.

The cold, wet days of this past spring have made it impossible for many of our wild bumbles to vitally forage at a time when the overwintering queens need to be able to store pollen and nectar for their first broods of worker bees. Hives of honey bees have had things a little less hard because bee keepers are able to feed their hives with syrups during times when foraging is not possible but bees need to be able to fly off and forage upon a diversity of nectar in order to stay healthy and keep our natural world and indeed our gardens alive. We also if you are like me need their presence quite frankly for our sanity. We will however keep planting and growing in hope, with all the chaos of the world, it is in many ways all we can really do to try and mentally heal ourselves.

Take care, Arthur x