A blog originally for keeping track of my hobby of being a Beekeeper which has evolved to include Home Brewing and even more recently to follow me and my families approach to "The Good Life". Eventually I hope to include baking recipes and stories of our flock of chickens also reporting on the success and failure at the allotments.

Monday 21 March 2011

Save The Bees!

While reading the Internet about Neonicotinoid pesticides I came across a link to a website that is holding a global petition to try to ban the use of these pesticides. Imidacloprid is one of the main neonictinoid pesticides in use today. These pesticides are systemic which means they stay inside the plant and effect every part of it, including the pollen and nectar, which are the parts the Bees use. The chemical effects the nervous system of the insects and kills them but not always straight away. The pollen is taken back to the hive which is stored for a later food source and then when the Bees need it they eat the poisoned pollen. Without going into too much details and trying to avoid publicly naming the huge companies responsible (you can do a google search on imidacloprid and find out if your that interested) I would like to ask anyone reading this to sign the petition. It only takes a few seconds and if it helps to ban these dangerous chemicals then it will of all been worth while.

Again the link to add your name to the petition is here!

And if you want to do even more then why not write to your MP. http://www.writetothem.com/ is the site for writing to your MP in the UK. A sample letter you can copy is



Dear (MP)

I am writing to ask you to support early Early Day motion 1267 - IMPACT OF NEONICOTINOID PESTICIDES ON BEES AND OTHER INVERTEBRATES

This is an extremely important measure to protect all our native insects from these pernicious and persistent toxins, which are increasingly recognized by the beekeeping and independent scientific communities as being a major causative factor in the massive decrease over recent years of the bee population.

Yours sincerely


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