• Question: Do you think if the atmosphere goes back to normal the honey bee count will increase?

    Asked by sarah001 to Derek, Elaine, Heather, Keith on 25 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Heather Eyre

      Heather Eyre answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      It depends on what you mean by ‘back to normal’, but I don’t think so.

      Honeybees have be affected by lots of factors:
      Changes in climate
      environmental toxins
      loss of natural habitats

      so even if the atmosphere returned to *normal* the other factors would still be there

    • Photo: Keith Siew

      Keith Siew answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      My understanding at the moment is that the largest contribution to honeybee loss… in places like London is literally a lack of food sources… there simply aren’t enough flowers with nectar to support the number of colonies… there is overcrowding and essentially they are experiencing a famine and starving to death…

      There is currently an initiative to plant more flowers in London to solve this… but pollution also plays a big factor as the harmful toxins the bees get exposed to that could be now contained in their nectar get carried back to the hive and poison the young…

      So as Heather said… it’s not a one stop solution that’s needed

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