Written question asked by Mike Weatherley (Conservative) on Thursday, 20 January 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 24 January 2011. It was answered by James Paice (Conservative) on Wednesday, 2 February 2011 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Bees

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much funding she has allocated to the National Bee Unit to address recent trends in the bee population.

Answer: In response to the challenges facing bees, in 2009 DEFRA allocated £2.3 million to the Food and Environment Research Agency's National Bee Unit (NBU) to implement the first two years of the 10-year Healthy Bees Plan in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government and others. This work is aimed at protecting and improving the health of honey bees. DEFRA also allocates funding to the NBU to control statutory diseases and pests of honey bees, to monitor colony losses and to provide advice to enable beekeepers to become more self-reliant in combating disease through improved bee husbandry; this year's allocation was £1.3 million. Over the last two years, there has been a significant reduction in the number of colonies that have been lost compared to previous years and last year's losses were the lowest since 2001.In addition, DEFRA has allocated £2.5 million over five years towards the £10 million Insect Pollinator Initiative which is also being funded by the Scottish Executive, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. The initiative's purpose is to promote innovative research aimed at understanding and mitigating the biological and environmental factors that adversely affect insect pollinators, including bumble and honey bees.

Secondary information