Written evidence submitted by Mr Norman Guiver (INS0003)

 

Wild honey bees extinct for past 5 years in OX10 9HF area

Honey bees are a key environmental indicator as unlike most other insect species they live through the winter as a colony.

Beekeepers though their hobby are the largest national focus group with regard to insects.

While the observations here are bee orientated there is no doubt there are many observations and effects which apply to all insects. 

  1. Norman Guiver
    1. I started keeping bees in 2009 and over the next few years was called out to collect upwards of 20 swarms per year.
  2. In 2016 other local beekeepers drew my attention to document they produced with regard to a decline in swarms and increasing losses. I registered with the National Bee Unit.
  3. In 2018 I observed a writhing layer of dying bees outside several hives in my apiary 
    1. This was reported to the National Bee Unit and a letter was received from the then, and current national bee inspector saying it was highly unlikely to be pesticides.  It was in fact neonicotinoids which were banned the following year.
  4. To assist my understanding, I developed a QR code/smart phone system to document each hives life cycle.
    1. I also developed a system whereby local commercial pesticide users could easily inform us of what they were spraying and when, called Bee.Watch. 
    2. The British Bee Keepers Association also had a system called Bee Connected, funded by the pesticide industry (through The Voluntary Initiative) which they promoted heavily, BUT blankly refused to promote Bee.Watch.
    3. Over the next 12 months I received 172 pesticide notifications from 3 farmers and 2 golf courses using Bee.Watch and just 2 from the BBKA promoted system BeeConnected.
      1. Roundup (glyphosate) appeared in half of all the treatments recorded.
      2. Fungicides such as azoxystrobin appeared
      3. No details of the pesticide appeared in the 2 Bee Connected alerts.
  5. About this time, I became aware of WIIS and studied the Bee losses recorded on their system over the previous few years.  The majority showed the presence of azoxystrobin but concluded that this was not a contributory factor, just a coincidence.
  6. In the beginning of 2018, I submitted samples of honey and bees from the hives that died out for analysis for pesticides to The Institute of Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford.
    1. A report came back telling me that the honey showed that my bees had been foraging on “peanuts” but no pesticide analysis came back.  
    2. Subsequently I received notification that the pesticide analysis had been cancelled due to a lack of funds.
    3. The Institute of Ecology and Hydrology was in fact in the process of being bought by the pesticide industry.
  7. In 2018 I had joined with another bee keeper and our apiary expanded to 49 colonies by 2019.  We did not have one swarm report from the local area
  8. We went into that winter with 5 new colonies which we fed on sugar and 44 colonies that we had built up.
    1. 32 of the 44 colonies died out over the period just after warm winter sunny days
    2. The 5 we fed on sugar, all small, survived.
      1. We reported this to WIIS but took 10 samples of honey to be tested.
        1. FERA, recently privatised, quoted £1000 per sample to test for glyphosate
        2. No other organisation in the UK tested for glyphosate
        3. At a cost of £1100 I sent samples to Berlin to be tested.
  9. TEST results
    1. Three samples of honey harvested in the summer showed no glyphosate
    2. All 7 samples of honey take from hives that died out contained up to 570 times the legal human food limit for pesticides. This highlighted the lack of normal forage available to insects in the autumn in the arable wastelands.
  10. Natural England, on behalf of WIIS took samples which eventually FERA tested with the same results.  FERA were unable to provide a believable explanation for the losses.
  11. At the time a bee keeper with connections as Cardiff University relayed some research where 1000 x the legal food limit of round up had been found in potatoes.
  12. A letter to the Environment Secretary produced a response saying that glyphosate was perfectly safe but refused the offer of drinking a glass of it.  The local MP refused to follow up on the letter which did not address a single issue raised.
  13. Eventually the findings for part of the period 2019/20 appeared on the WIIS database.
    1. Glyphosate is the most widely used pesticide in the whole world
      1. University research has shown that when a herbicide (glyphosate) is combined with a fungicide (azoxystrobin) in a tank mix (cocktail of chemicals) it becomes a powerful insecticide.  This is well known to spray contractors.
      2. The failure or refusal of the pesticide industry to allow testing for glyphosate goes back to the formation of The Voluntary Initiative in 2002. The then government decided that the industry could voluntary regulate itself and since then the use of pesticides has more than doubled.
    2. Our event was the first time glyphosate appeared in any WIIS incident with any animal of any sort.
      1. The incidents that only showed a fungicide may have been caused by the presence of untested glyphosate
  14. In a meeting with a representative from the Voluntary Initiative it was admitted that the “industry” had no research on the effects of “tank mixes” as there are so many possible permutations that it would be too expensive.  Basically the VI was not in any sort of control over the industry.

 

  1. 2021  The licensees of glyphosate Bayer,
    1. were paid £880,000 by the UK to help them through covid
    2. Were fined $8 billion in the US for causing cancer
    3. Paid shareholders £2billion in dividends
      1. In the UK FERRA want £1000 per test
        1. So it never appeared on WIIS until they were forced to test
        2. In Berlin it cost £110.

 

  1. 2021/22
    1. The loss of 32 colonies was more than my colleague could take so he split and the apiary was reduced to 13 hives by end of 2022.
  2. 2022 Not a single Wild swarm had been reported in the area for 5 years.

 

  1. All 13 hives died out over the 2022/23 winter
    1. 3 hives kept by another bee keeper at the same location died out. 
    2. The bee keeper next door lost 3 out of 5 hives
    3. A bee keeper 1 miles away lost 5 out of 8.
    4. A Bee farmer lost 60 hives.

 

  1. This final incident is currently under investigation by Natural England.
    1. An e-mail was sent to the National Bee Inspector asking if it is worth trying to keep bees in this area anymore and no direct answer was forthcoming.

 

Summary

Glyphosate The work that goes into keeping bees is significant but the focus here is on glyphosate as it is far and away the most widely used pesticide, although others may be more or less significant.  While it is a very valuable chemical, it is a neuro toxin and as an herbicide it is widely misused.

1)      Use in tank mixes with fungicides, to reduce costs by single spraying, but wipes out whole insect populations in the autumn as a powerful insecticide.  Swathes of dead bumble bees observed at the entrance of our property.

    1. Oil seed rape
      1. as a desiccant to make it easier to harvest.
        1. Bees forage the chemical and take it back to the hive
          1. Combined with climate change it causes colony collapse disorder where bees go foraging and cant find their way back to the hive.
          2. It affects their sleep patterns
          3. Promoted by the industry as “Liquid sunshine”
        2. In a tank mix with a fungicide, it wipes out all insects

2)      Use to kill the haulm on potatoes to make them easier to harvest, 3 weeks later

    1. The plant puts this “foliar feed” into its potatoes

3)      Use to kill preemergent weeks in autumn sowing

    1. There is nothing for insects to forage on again, on climate driven warm winter spells.

 

The wider picture

4)      Living in a hollow tree a colony of bees will eventually have occupied all the space and move out.

    1. The Wax moth moves in, consumes all the detritus and produces millions of moths for bats and birds to feed on.

5)      Bee Colonies usually cluster to keep the queen warm during the winter, emerging in the spring, rested.

    1. The foraging that goes on during warm winter spells (above 7 deg C) means the queen is laying 12 months a year.
    2. Pesticides have been shown to affect bees’ ability to sleep. 
      1. Nectar containing pesticides is concentrated before it is stored in the hive honey.
      2. They consume the stores to survive and generate heat
        1. At concentrations above that acceptable for humans.
    3. Colonies can survive very low temperatures but -10 deg C this winter on several days combined with the effects of concentrated pesticides my be affecting their ability to cluster and keep warm.
      1. On one day it was -7 deg C at night and the bees were flying the next day.

             

The regulatory and related authorities

6)      It is blatantly clear, and predictable that over the last 20 years the Voluntary Initiative has failed miserably in its statutory role to reduce the use of pesticides.  Most MPs have never heard of the organisation.

i.        It has overseen the gradual elimination of all challenges to the use of pesticides and the failure to test in the UK for the world’s most common which is present in all of us.

ii.      It has admitted that the industry has no, or has not published, tests results for tank mixes yet continues to allow them

7)      The British Bee Keepers Association (which represents some bee keepers)

i.        has no verifiable year on year data on which to assess the heath of the country’s bee populations

    1. Is the only association in Europe where bee keepers do not have to be registered.

ii.      Promotes projects run by the pesticide industry and refuses to promote projects that may upset the industry.

iii.     Produces nothing to encourage the use of technology like smart phones to the next generation of bee keepers.

 

8)      DEFRA sub departments such as the NBU seem to be controlled by FERA and wash their hands of any responsibility to actually fight the bee’s corner.

Human Health

9)      Amateur bee keepers all over the UK are ignorantly selling honey, and we are buying it, that is full of high concentrations of pesticides and since the testing facility in Wallingford was bought by the pesticide industry, there is no where they can go to get it tested

Environmental celebrities

10)  Within many letters and e-mails to the vast array of environmentalists, including television and radio celebrities, MPs on all parties, the BBC and the future king, concerning pesticides, only one response was ever received. 

To quote one bee keeper “ … the selfish effects of unbridled capitalism on the environment are utterly grim.”

The initial way forwards

Bee keepers are a committed force for good who are not being mobilised as the pesticide industry has a commercial stranglehold on government.

DATA is the key to the way forwards and beekeepers can be mobilised to generate it through what they already do on a daily basis. This will create a real time geospatial picture of the insect environment 365 days a year, in real timethereby linking cause to effect. The comprehensive systems needed to do this already exist.

Longer term

In 2002 Tony Blair decided to let the industry regulate itself while at the same time Denmark decided to tax the pesticide industry.  In the UK the pesticide industry funds university research and in Denmark the government funds it.

Government has to wean itself off its addiction to and dependence on the pesticide industry.  Why did Boris give Bayer £660,000 which they used to pay to their shareholders dividends?

 

The numerous 21st diseases and allergies we have now rarely existed when I was a kid but my father’s headlight on his motorcycle needs cleaning every 50 miles or he could not see to ride in the dark.

14 April 2023