Robin Dean of CJ Wildlife

Bees are at risk from a number of factors

Bees are at risk from a number of factors

A rapidly declining global honeybee population could spell serious trouble for the fresh produce industry, unless growers start exploring alternative pollinator options.

Inadequate pollination of apple orchards can lead to misshapen and undersized fruit, higher consequence of fruit drop, and storage and shelf-life problems, according to Robin Dean, a commercial beekeeper who works with CJ Wildlife.

Declining numbers of beehives, ageing beekeepers, the debilitating bee disease varroa, the new generation of systemic pesticides and colony collapse disorder (CCD) are all causing global honeybee populations to decline, especially in central Europe and the UK. The latter has seen a 54 per cent drop in honeybees.

“If this continues, we’ll be in real trouble,” said Dean. “For example, one hectare of cooking apples needs 2.5 colonies for pollination. It costs £45 to rent a hive of bees now, but that could rise to £180. So the £112 per hectare rental cost could become £448. That would mean a drop in gross margin, from £2,575 per hectare to £2,239.

“If honeybees are written off completely due to CCD or the emergence of new diseases, that could mean honeybees becoming 44 per cent of your input costs, with a 34 per cent loss in gross margin,” he told growers.

There are more than 19,000 species of bees worldwide, and 17,000 of those are solitary bees, as opposed to social bees like the honeybee. “A number of [solitary bees] have potential as alternate pollinators,” said Dean. “Only a handful have been investigated but, due to the way they distribute pollen, they may be more efficient than honeybees.”

Changes to orchard management systems should also help ease the situation, said Dean, highlighting integrated pest management (IPM) programmes, pheromone traps and better spray programmes as options, as well as supply of long-term food sources for pollination.

“We need to start investigating pollinator services. Honeybees are not the be-all and end-all of pollination - there are so many other ways,” Dean said. Other solutions put forward were the identification of local native pollinators, along with sponsored research programmes.

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