Declining numbers of honey bees could have catastrophic consequences for fruit farmers in the county.
Beekeepers across Kent say they will run out of honey before Christmas as pests and disease, such as the parasitic blood-sucking mite Varroa, are devastating hive populations.
Modern farming practices, the use of pesticides, and climate change have contributed to the problem, say keepers who warn that honey bees could wiped out by disease in 10 years.
Bee expert Peter Griffiths, who keeps hives at Brogdale Farm in Faversham, said beekeepers have seen more than a 50 per cent drop in the amount of honey being produced this year due to declining numbers of bees.
“Year by year most beekeepers would be quite content to collect 50 pounds of honey,” he said.
“This year has been awful - only between 10 to 15 pounds has been collected. This is a very significant drop.”
At Brogdale Mr Griffiths lost two out of eight hives - 25 per cent - which compares to reported national losses of between 15 and 30 per cent.
Winter losses are expected in the UK but usually only up to 10 per cent.
The British Beekeepers’ Association is calling for increased funding of £8 million from the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) to carry out urgent research into bee health.
“We are very concerned,” Mr Griffiths said. “Anything that happens with the population of bees will have an impact on pollination.
“Any decline in the number of bees doing pollination will have a knock-on effect to the effectiveness of pollination.”
The annual value of UK agricultural pollination provided by honey bees is £165 million, according to Defra.
Robert Hinge, who owns a fruit farm, which grows apples, cherries, pears and plums, in Sittingbourne, said: “It is quite a worry. We have a lot of hives on the farm, around 40, and each season we are losing five to six.”
He said the farm’s beekeepers were struggling to maintain the bee population.
“Without bees there is no pollination and without that we have got a major problem.
“It is very difficult to be precise as to how much we are suffering.
“Every flower needs to be pollinated and with a loss of pollination there will be problems.
“I don’t think that it has hit us economically yet but if the situation gets worse then it definitely will,” Mr Hinge, who is also chair of the Swale branch of the National Farmers Union (NFU), added.
A third of all our foodstuffs is dependant on pollination by honey bees and they provide more than 50 per cent of the pollination of wild plants that the majority of other wildlife depends on.
The NFU has joined calls for more Government funding for research into bees.
Mr Griffiths said that human intervention through the loss of wild areas to farming, the loss of hedgerows, pesticides, development, and now the growing risk of disease had upset the complicated interrelationship between honey bees and the environment.
The Verroa mite, which according to Defra, is probably present in all UK bee colonies, originates from Asia. It spent decades travelling to the UK across Europe and has now been present here for around 15 years.
Mr Griffiths said it does not kill the bees directly but weakens them and makes them susceptible to viruses.
“We feel we need research and it is in the national interest in terms of pollination,” he added.
POSTED: 29/11/2008 16:00:00
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