Wild flower meadows make attractive habitats for a range of pollinators

More than 50 delegates had  the chance to meet and talk to the 12 research scientists of the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) on Wednesday 28 April 2010. The day featured discussions and activities at ‘What's the Buzz? Bees, Land Use and the Community’.

Representatives from organisations including some of LASI's donors - Rowse Honey  and cosmetics company Burt's Bees - attended the event.

What's the Buzz?, hosted by LASI and sponsored by the University's Business and Enterprise team, focused on the decline of honey bees and the impact of this on land use and the community at large.
The gathering covered topics in education, community, agriculture and land management and provided ample opportunity for lively debate, networking and for sharing ideas on how to help the honey bee.
Delegates were able to:

• see the bees foraging and pollinating;
• observe bee behaviour close up in a special observation hive;
• find out how scientists are decoding the waggle dance - a special form of communication used by bees to tell co-workers where to fly to find sources of food.

There are about 250 British species of bee and they are an important part of our biodiversity. They are also the most important plant pollinators. Pollination is increasingly recognised as a key 'ecosystem service' and is vital in agriculture, with approximately one third of the human diet coming from bee-pollinated plants.

Bees, however, are under threat, with declines in the numbers of honey bees, bumble bees and other wild bees in Britain and elsewhere.

Professor Francis Ratnieks, who heads LASI, says: "Although bee numbers have not yet reached crisis levels, there is a need to reverse this downward trend. How can this be done? One way is to make Britain a more bee-friendly country by mobilising the many people who are in a position to help bees, either indirectly or directly, by their work in education, science, communication, land management, conservation, agriculture, and government."

Nick Mann from HabitatAid stated: “What a good day it was. Two aspects of the event struck me as being particularly helpful. I always enjoy listening to scientists talking about bees, particularly those of practical bent. I am regularly confused by (mis)information proffered by journalists and enthusiasts who often have some sort of agenda of their own. I learnt a lot, some of which I should have known but didn’t, and a fair bit that was completely new to me. The second helpful thing was the mix of folk there. I’ve been struck over the last year by the dislocation there can be between conservationists/ecologists and the commercial sector. Events like this are brilliant in getting people to understand where the different sides are coming from. Congratulations to LASI and the University of Sussex for coming up with the idea. I’m sure it will grow and become an important date in the Bee Calendar.”

Download the event materials [PDF - 34.4Mb]

Slideshow

Image credit: Simon Colmer © 2010 simoncolmer.co.uk

For the entire set of images, refer to the Flickr set, or view the Flickr slideshow.