Bee Day 2024: Can fruit growing sector survive without bees?
20th May 2024
To recognise the pivotal role of bees in the fruit growing and farming sectors, today the world is celebrating Bee Day 2024.
Bees are some of the world’s most important creatures and many plants would not be able to fertilise without them and other pollinators.
Dependent on bees to fertilise crops
A spokesperson for the Soil Association said: “Butterflies, moths and other insects pollinate too, but bees are estimated to provide billions of dollars’ worth of pollination services to farmers worldwide.
“Many of the world’s food crops depend on insect and animal pollination to some degree, and pollinators are essential for growing many different fruits, nuts and berries. There are around 70 crops in the UK that depend or benefit from bee pollination.
“Pollination by honey bees, wild bees and bumblebees is incredibly valuable for farmers.
“It is estimated that it would cost UK farmers £1.8 billion a year to pollinate their crops manually if wild bees disappeared.
“Clearly, it would be an incredibly laborious and enormously expensive task for farmers and growers to manually pollinate their trees and crops, but sadly, this is already the case in some parts of China where natural pollinators have disappeared.”
READ MORE: Public warned to be ‘increasingly vigilant’ and report Asian hornet sightings
There is no plan bee
Research has found that honeybees used to do 70% of the pollination in the UK, but now they are only capable of supplying 34% of the country’s pollination needs.
This gap is now being filled by wild pollinators, such as bumblebees and hoverflies.
The Soil Association spokesperson added: “It is scary to imagine a food system without bees, but that is what we are moving towards if we are not careful to avoid harmful pesticides and find methods for reducing the infestations of the varroa mite.
“Many bee species are in decline, but there are some bumblebee and solitary bee species that haven’t declined and are actually doing well.
“These are mainly the bee species that are not dependent on specific flowers, but can collect pollen from a range of sources.”
World Bee Day is celebrated on Monday 20th May.
Read more fruit news.
